


Thirteen Memories

by tempestbreak



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2020-11-25 16:16:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20914943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tempestbreak/pseuds/tempestbreak
Summary: (Set at the end of Season 2) Sabrina and her friends go to Hell and rescue Nick -- but what happens when that's the easy part?It turns out, having the Dark Lord inside your mind for months can do some damage, and Nick comes back different. His memories of the events leading up to his sacrifice, including his relationship with Sabrina, are gone. How can Sabrina help him regain his memories of their time together when she's not even sure she trusts her own?Note 10/19/20: This fic has essentially been abandoned, pending a return of enthusiasm/inspiration. Apologies.





	1. Defeating the Dark Lord

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a good long time since I last wrote fanfiction, but Nick and Sabrina have really inspired me! This first chapter is pretty actiony, setting the stage for the lore of the story, but we'll get to the angsty romance/romantic angst soon enough. Let me know what you think.

Sabrina’s boots clicked on the marble as she, Harvey, Roz, and Theo strode down the long colonnade to Lilith’s throne room. Months of planning had led them to this. As they had grown more prepared, more ready, she realized that there would come a point when they simply could not justify leaving him trapped any longer, when the marginal benefits of additional preparation would be outweighed by his continued suffering. She had decided today – Halloween, October 31, her birthday – would be the day they got her boyfriend back from Hell.

First, however, they needed to speak to Lilith. Only the Queen of Hell knew where the Dark Lord was being kept, and they were not assured of her consent for their mission. Sabrina steeled her will as she pushed open the throne room doors. She would convince her.

The room was carved from shiny, dark stone – obsidian, Sabrina realized, like from volcanoes. _Thanks, freshman-year Earth Science_, she thought with an internal grin.

At the end of the long, dark red carpet sat the self-crowned Queen of Hell, her crown a bramble of golden bones. An enormous pyre blazed behind her throne.

“Sabrina,” Lilith greeted her, smiling. Her eyes flicked to the others behind her. “And… the Sabrinettes.”

“We’re called the Fright Club, actually,” said Harvey, as though waiting for a laugh. He was still very proud of that name.

The Queen of Hell clearly didn’t get the reference. She ignored him. “Sabrina, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Sabrina stopped a few feet from the throne. The others stopped just behind her. “I think you know what we’re here for,” she said. “_Who_ we’re here for.”

“Same old Sabrina.” Lilith appraised her – perhaps coldly? Sabrina couldn’t tell, with the light from the imperial pyre in her eyes. “When she’s on a suicide mission, pleasantries be damned.”

“This is not a suicide mission, Lilith.”

“Oh? What else do you call journeying into Hell to – I can only assume – _free _Nicholas Scratch? Whose physical sacrifice is the only thing saving us all from eternal torture.” She looked down her long nose at them all.

“I call it a _rescue_ mission,” Sabrina declared.

“Yeah!” Sabrina turned and raised an eyebrow at Roz, who blushed. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I just got riled up ’cause that was so badass.” Harvey put a comforting arm around her.

Lilith’s expression seemed to soften at the sight of that affection, Sabrina thought. Perhaps she could be persuaded after all. “Lilith, I need to get him back. He’s my boyfriend, and I… care for him a great deal.” She hoped the ending of that declaration didn’t sound as lame to Lilith as it did to her.

The look Lilith gave her told her it did. “Is that so? In spite of the fact that he betrayed you to the Dark Lord?”

Sabrina looked away. “Nick betrayed me, yes,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean he should have to stay in Hell forever. It doesn’t mean I don’t care for him – ”

“ – A great deal, yes, so you said.” Lilith clicked her nails on the arm of the throne. She considered Sabrina for a long moment. “And you really wish to invalidate his sacrifice in this way?”

Sabrina opened her mouth and quickly closed it again. She frowned. “What do you mean, invalidate his sacrifice?”

“The boy needed to redeem himself after betraying you to the Dark Lord. Taking Satan into his body to save the world was how he chose to do that.” Lilith’s gaze was piercing. “Do you think he would want you to risk releasing the Dark Lord, endangering the world and yourself, just to save him? Even if you do somehow succeed in this so-called rescue mission – and that is a very big if, Sabrina – at the very least, would that not defeat the purpose of Mr. Scratch’s act of redemption?”

For all her months of planning, this was an angle she had not considered. She had assumed Nick would expect her to come, that he had bound the Dark Lord to him trusting that she would figure out a way to save him _and_ keep Lucifer imprisoned. The plan she had come up with was designed to do just that, but she had to admit it was risky. In moments of weakness, she wondered if she was simply turning back the clock and giving Satan a second chance to bring the Apocalypse. But she had set those thoughts aside easily. Nick was expecting her.

But what if he wasn’t? What if he had truly thought that he was taking the last action of his life and had chosen to use it to save the world? Did she have the right to take that away from him and endanger the world in the process? It gave her pause for the first time in months.

In the end, though, the answer was simple. She looked back up at Lilith and shrugged. “He would do the same for me. Apocalypse be damned.”

Lilith sighed. “Very well.” She leaned forward in her throne. “Sabrina, it is in part because of your and Mr. Scratch’s bravery that I sit here before you. I am not deaf to your wishes. I will show you to him,” she said, “but, Sabrina, do you plan to wake Him? His bonds hold only because He is dormant. If He escapes, we are all in grave danger.”

“If I don’t have to wake Him, I won’t,” Sabrina replied. It was not really an answer. She met Lilith’s searching gaze and did not look away.

After a moment, Lilith nodded. Her mouth was set in a thin line. “I see you are determined. Come, then.” She stood, turned back to her black throne, and held out her hand to it. The throne moved aside, revealing a stone staircase leading down into darkness. Somehow Sabrina felt a chill, dank air wafting from below, even here in the Palace of the Fire.

Lilith began to descend. Sabrina followed her without hesitation. Behind her, she could almost hear Harvey, Roz, and Theo exchange looks of skepticism before they fell in line.

They descended the steep, curving staircase for what must have been only minutes but felt like forever – but, then again, this was Hell, and that was kind of the point. The air grew colder with each step, until their breaths condensed before their faces and Sabrina could hear Theo sniffling from the cold. Candles recessed in the stone walls flared as Lilith passed and then guttered just as quickly, providing faint, flickering light.

Suddenly, they reached the bottom. The floor was cold and a little slippery in places. There was a faint, regular dripping in the distance.

“It sounds like a leaky faucet,” said Roz, breaking the silence for the first time since their descent began.

“Then I guess we’re in my own personal Hell,” Theo joked weakly. Harvey snorted.

“This way,” said Lilith, ignoring them. “He is close now.” She gestured down a dark corridor, the only path available to them.

Sabrina turned to the rest of the Fright Club. “This is it, you guys. Are you really sure you want to do this?” She was surprised – and heartened – to see them all nod almost immediately.

“Like we said, ’Brina, we’re totally in,” said Roz.

“Could you even do it without us at this point?” asked Harvey. “Don’t you need us?”

“I do,” she admitted, “but I don’t want you to get hurt. And if you’re scared – ”

“Oh, scared _for sure_,” Roz laughed, “but we trust you.” She took Sabrina’s hand and squeezed it. Roz’s hands were surprisingly warm despite the cold.

Sabrina smiled at her, at all of them. “Then let’s get my boyfriend.”

The corridor slanted downwards and was even colder than the stairway. Sabrina clasped her arms around her and tried to keep her teeth from chattering. She was tempted to cast a warming spell but Lilith was walking quickly ahead of them, and she could not pause if she wanted to keep up.

Lilith suddenly stalled and turned back to them. She held a finger to her lips, the candlelight flickering on her angular face. The dripping sound echoed all around them. “We must be quiet,” she hissed. “Beyond is His chamber.” And she turned away from them again.

Sabrina entered the chamber just behind Lilith. It was roughly dome-shaped. Much of it was taken up by a frozen lake of black ice. A thin crescent of stone created a slippery bank around the lake’s edge. At its center was a jagged pillar of that same ice, which looked as though it had been spouted from a geyser and frozen in midair. Heavy iron chains strung from the ceiling and walls thrust into it. In that frozen pillar, bound by the chains with only his head and shoulders out of the ice, was Nick.

Sabrina’s breath caught in her throat at the sight of him. His eyes were still closed, his head lolled forward. His curly black hair fell into his face.

“That’s him,” breathed Theo, voicing Sabrina’s thoughts.

“That’s _not_ him,” said Lilith sharply. “Right now, that is the Dark Lord, and you would do well not to forget it.”

Theo looked abashed.

“Isn’t he cold?” Sabrina couldn’t stop herself from asking. It sounded pathetic even to her. She felt Roz squeeze her hand again.

Lilith raised an eyebrow. “We’re in the Ninth Circle of Hell, Sabrina, where the greatest sinners are punished for eternity. Suffering is kind of the point.” She looked back up at Nick – _no_, Sabrina reminded herself, _the Dark Lord_ – and continued grimly: “But the ice should do no physical harm to him. Besides, Mr. Scratch took the Devil Himself into his body. A little cold may be refreshing.”

Sabrina gazed up at the pillar of ice, studying it.

“We have to get him out of there,” she said.

Lilith’s look was hard but not surprised. “And just how do you plan to extricate Mr. Scratch but _not_ the Dark Lord?”

Sabrina opened the satchel at her side and silently showed Lilith its contents.

The Queen of Hell peered in and, after a moment, sighed. “What you’re planning is very dangerous, Sabrina,” she said softly. “All soul-bound magic is.”

Sabrina’s jaw was set. “Luckily, I am too.”

“To do this, you will have to wake Him up. You knew that before coming to me.”

Sabrina nodded.

Lilith gazed up at the figure enclosed in ice. “The ice only holds Him now because He is dormant, but you can hear that dripping. Even if He stayed dormant for the rest of time, eventually the simple heat from His body would melt the ice. He is suspended here so that when that happens, he will simply plunge into the Lake of Oblivion below and fall forever into its depths.” She turned back to Sabrina. “You must understand, the type of ritual you’re proposing is usually used only for lesser demons, not the Dark Lord Himself. It requires the utmost precision and care and takes hours, sometimes days. Once the Dark Lord wakes up, you will have mere minutes.”

Sabrina nodded again, swallowing dryly. She hoped her face did not show how her confidence was ebbing from her. She wondered, not for the first time, if she had led the rest of the Fright Club to their doom.

Lilith put a hand on her shoulder and gripped it strongly. Her hand was warm, almost hot. “Sabrina, listen to me. You have not known the Dark Lord for long, but He is cruel and deceitful. He is the Master of Lies, Sabrina, and right now He has the face of someone you loved, who loved you. He will say anything to break you. And He knows that saying it from behind Mr. Scratch’s face will make it that much more painful.”

“I understand, Lilith.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Theo piped up. “To help.”

“Yeah, it’s not like I really cared one way or the other about his face,” said Harvey with a grin.

Sabrina smiled back at them.

Lilith’s eyes were grave, however. “Sabrina. Even understanding all that I’ve said, you still wish to proceed?”

“It’s all I _can_ do.” Sabrina’s voice was steady.

To her surprise, Lilith smiled faintly, almost indulgently, as her hand left Sabrina’s shoulder. “Then you will have my aid, as well. I look forward to seeing a sixteen-year-old girl defeat the Dark Lord for a second time.”

Sabrina grinned. “Seventeen, actually.”

“Oh.” Lilith looked almost embarrassed. “Well, then… happy birthday, Sabrina.”

***

What seemed like only seconds later but could have taken forever – again, Hell – all of the ritual’s components were prepared in the chamber. She stood square with the suspended body of Satan-Nick, her feet inches from the lake’s frozen surface, breathing deeply and attempting to calm her pounding heart. She nervously twisted the short knife in her hand. Roz, Harvey, and Theo stood directly behind her.

“Whenever you are ready, Sabrina,” said Lilith. She stood to the side, farther along the lake’s edge.

Sabrina looked over her shoulder at her friends. “Guys?”

“Ready when you are,” Roz chirped. Theo nodded, and Harvey gave a thumbs up.

Her heart swelled to have them so steadfastly behind her. They had come so far, and now…

She turned back to the suspended body. It looked so like Nick. He could be sleeping. She had rarely seen him sleeping when they were together – he was almost always awake when she fell asleep, already up when she awoke – but, seeing him now, she hoped this was not how he looked in sleep. His brows were slightly furrowed, his mouth in a grimace. He looked like he was in pain, or maybe having a nightmare.

_Today, it ends._

“I, Sabrina Spellman,” she proclaimed, raising her arms, “call thee forth, Lucifer Morningstar. Answer my call or face my wrath.”

They weren’t the words of supplication she had practiced in her head. She could feel the others’ eyes on her.

“Um, ’Brina?” said Roz, leaning forward. “Those weren’t the words I remember you telling us you’d say…”

“I know, I know. But – ” Her jaw clenched. “Seeing him hanging there just really pissed me off.”

“Well, he better show up then,” said Theo with a grin. “You do _not_ want to piss off Sabrina Spellman.”

They all looked back up at the suspended body. It was still. But then a shoulder twitched. The head lolled forward. Eyelids fluttered.

“S-Sabrina…”

It was Nick’s voice, but she dared not believe it. Satan was the Great Deceiver. Still, what if…?

“Nick?” she asked tentatively. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lilith look at her warningly.

“Sabrina… You came…” His voice sounded glad yet pained. The way Nick would sound. Just like.

“Of course I came. I couldn’t leave you,” she responded earnestly. She took a step forward without realizing. “Are you in pain?”

“It hurts… in my head.” His dark brows were furrowed. “The Dark Lord tortures me… shows me things… you and the mortal boy…” She thought she saw a tear squeeze out from his closed eye.

“He’s lying, Nick. He’s the Master of Lies. There’s nothing between me and Harvey.”

He groaned again. “Then why… is he here?”

“Sabrina – ” Lilith’s tone was sharp.

_I know, _she thought grimly._ I know it might be the Dark Lord, but what if it’s not what if it really is Nick and he’s in pain I have to know if it’s him I have to because if it is, then… _

“Harvey and Roz and Theo and I are all here to rescue you,” Sabrina said. “We’re here to bring you back.”

“You’re too late, Sabrina. I don’t think… the Dark Lord will let me go… Our souls are completely entangled now…”

It was as she had expected, but still her heart fell. “We have to try, Nick.”

Another tear fell down his pained face. “If you hadn’t left me here… so long… maybe I wouldn’t have suffered like this…”

A chill went down her spine. She took a step back. “You’re not Nick.” She saw Lilith give a short, approving nod.

A look of even greater pain crossed his face – and then He smiled. “Well, that was fun while it lasted,” the Dark Lord chuckled, His voice no longer Nick’s. He finally opened His eyes. They were blood red and cruel. “What gave me away?”

“Nick would understand I tried my best and came as soon as I could,” she said fiercely, “and he would _never_ try to make me feel guilty.” Lilith was wrong, she thought. The Dark Lord using Nick’s face and voice to say those words hadn’t hurt her – it had only made her angrier.

“Months of torturing him from the inside, and I still can’t do a fair impression,” the Dark Lord sneered. “I must be losing my touch.”

“And you won’t have any more time to work on that impression, either.” She strode forward to the edge of the lake, allowing her fury to lend her the confidence she did not feel. “Now, Lucifer, are we going to do this the easy way or the hard way?”

“You think you can defeat me?” His red eyes blazed with rage and – amusement? “Your arrogance would astound me if you were not my own daughter.”

“I am _not_ your daughter,” she ground out through gritted teeth. “I am the daughter of Edward and Diana Spellman. I defeated you once, and I can do it again.” She raised the short, silver-tipped knife, the oil from its anointed blade dripping down to the hilt, making her fingers slick.

“Is that supposed to be an Alexandrian blade, Sabrina?” The Devil smirked down at her with Nick’s face, Nick’s mouth, and He looked just like him but cruel, perverse. “Slicing through this soul knot will destroy Nicholas Scratch along with me, and I think you’ll find a paring knife is a bit small.”

“Fortunately, I don’t need it to slice,” she said, smirking right back. “I just need it to pare.” She saw a brief look of confusion cross Satan-Nick’s face before she turned back to Harvey, Roz, and Theo and shouted, “_Now!_”

Immediately the three of them joined hands and began to chant. Sabrina closed her eyes, tried to focus on their words – Harvey’s Latin pronunciation was still off, but Roz’s voice was strong and sure, and Theo’s was clear as a bell – and began to concentrate on conjuring the soul knot before her. Through the darkness, she saw a great tangle of wires, one cool and black, the other blazing red, so hot at the ends that it was white. Her eyes still closed, she extended the knife forward into the air. She felt it connect with the knot, felt it slide between the black and the red, felt it begin to gently pull the black free.

Sabrina heard the Dark Lord laugh. “You think you can separate my consciousness from his? Remove the charred remains of his soul from this mortal vessel? You will only make me more powerful if you do!”

She tried to ignore him, focusing on the tangle of wires. She somehow found one end of the black wire, Nick’s wire, and began following it, gently extricating it from the tangle. On this end of the wire, it was smooth going, but she could see that the places where the two wires were most entangled were still to come.

“Sabrina!” Roz shouted. “Look, he’s – ”

Sabrina opened her eyes. Satan-Nick was beginning to move. His shoulders twisted at the top of the pillar of ice as he tried to free his arms. Sabrina’s stomach sank when she noticed steam rising from the pillar. He was melting it. She had known he wouldn’t just let her proceed unimpeded, but she had hoped to get a little bit further along. The ice looked like it was melting fast, running in rivulets to the lake below.

She closed her eyes again and tried to move faster herself. The tip of the blade slipped easily into a hard knot of black and red, plucked out the black. The free tail of the black wire was becoming ever longer. It felt good to hold onto, somehow. _I’ve got you_, she thought.

She chanced another look at the Dark Lord’s own progress. The ice had receded down his chest. His upper arms were freed. She also saw that the iron chains were beginning to glow from the heat from his body. The ice was melting faster. The black runoff pooled on the lake’s frozen surface, slowly rising above the lake’s sloping banks to lap at her toes.

“Sabrina, you’ll want to hurry up,” Lilith urged through her teeth. Sabrina noticed for the first time that the Queen of Hell was casting her own magic, trying to slow the ice’s melting, but she was not as powerful as the Dark Lord.

“Yes, _do_ hurry up, Sabrina,” growled the Dark Lord. “I can’t wait to be free of this prison _and_ rid of this pathetic warlock’s soul.”

Sabrina tried to ignore him. She turned her head over her shoulder. “Harvey,” she shouted, “how’s that clay coming?”

“It got so cold on the way down here, it’s hard to mold!” he shouted back. He was on his knees behind, her a large lump of gray clay in his hands. Theo and Roz knelt next to him, putting their hands on it, trying to warm it with their body heat. She saw Theo lean close to it and start breathing on it, trying to huff hot air at the clay.

She closed her eyes again and returned to the tangled wires. Did the red wire look even hotter, or was it only her mounting panic? Time was growing short, so she stuck the knife’s tip right into the middle of the tangle, trying to loosen the wires from the center now, where they were most tightly entwined. She was careful not to let her bare hand touch that hot wire. She felt if she did, she might lose all concentration.

“Roz, I’m going to need you soon,” she said, eyes still closed tight as she tried to work the knot.

She felt Roz stand up behind her and touch her shoulder, and then there was a third spectral hand within her mind’s eye. This was a surprise – she had expected to have to slowly feed the wire into Roz’s hands, not to have her help directly. Hope soared in Sabrina’s breast. _We can do it_, she thought. _We’re strong enough together_. Roz’s hand gently grasped the free end of the black wire and began to pull.

She suddenly heard clanking iron chains before her – Satan-Nick’s binds must be free of the ice now – but she dared not open her eyes, lest Roz lose her grip on Nick’s wire.

Behind her, she could hear Harvey grunt as he broke the lump of clay in two. The conversation they’d had while preparing the ritual components flashed through her mind:

_Why can’t we just break it in two now, ’Brina?_

_Because _they’re _not in two yet. The clay represents their physical form. They’re joined now, but we want to separate them…_

The anointed Alexandrian blade trembled in her grasp, oil from the knife and sweat from her hand making it slick. She dared not move any faster than she already was. If the knife slipped, she might sever Nick’s wire before it was fully disentangled, and then he would truly be lost, perhaps even become a vegetable… But she couldn’t let herself think of that possibility now. The bicolored knot of wires representing Nick and the Dark Lord was increasingly becoming simply a white-hot snarl. The free end of Nick’s wire was growing ever longer as Roz’s hand slowly pulled it toward the clay.

“Theo, you got it?” Roz asked, her voice strained. She was clearly concentrating hard.

“Yes!” he cried. “And I think – I think it’s working! Look!”

Sabrina couldn’t stop herself from opening one eye just a crack. Her stomach dropped when she saw that the ice had melted to His knees. Truly only the chains held Him now, and without the ice surrounding them, they looked weak.

But she also saw that Satan-Nick’s body looked almost… hazy, like she was looking at him with crossed eyes. He seemed to be expanding in two directions. One was upright, locked in the chains, red eyes furious; the other bent forward toward the rapidly melting lake, head still bowed, eyes closed.

_Nick!_

“It _is _working,” Lilith whispered. Sabrina thought she heard awe in her voice. “A half-witch and three mortals…”

“…Will _never_ defeat me,” the Dark Lord roared, straining against his chains.

“Like I said, Lucifer,” Sabrina cried, “I did it before and I’ll do it – ”

The shards of the remaining ice burst in all directions. She felt a sudden spray of cold, and a freezing wave crashed over her feet as the lake overflowed its banks. She heard Harvey let out a sharp cry of pain behind her and turned to see. An icicle had lodged in his shoulder, and he lay on the ground bleeding.

“Harvey!” she and Roz shouted in unison. She felt Roz’s grip on her shoulder loosen.

“_Don’t you dare move, mortal!_” Lilith’s voice boomed around them. Roz froze. “I will tend to him. You must continue your work, or we are all lost.” The Queen of Hell went to kneel beside Harvey, who was breathing hard.

Sabrina met Roz’s gaze and saw that tears were spilling down her cheeks. She heard Satan-Nick begin to laugh. Even though the division between the two bodies was growing deeper by the second – looking directly at Him made her feel like she was seeing double – He seemed unfazed.

“So nice to finally met the Harvey I’ve heard so much about,” He sneered. “I’ve conjured him up for my little games with Nicholas so many times in the past months that I’m glad I get to see him face-to-face. Turns out he’s a bit of a sore spot for Mr. Scratch when it comes to you, Sabrina. Oh, that worried cry you let out when he was injured will feature _prominently_ in our games after you’re gone, I _promise_ you…”

Tears and sweat now flowed freely down Sabrina’s own face. “You won’t get a fucking chance!” Sabrina screamed. She closed her eyes yet again and returned to the tangle.

There was only the smallest bit of black wire left – she even noticed that Roz had been carefully picking at the ends herself, passing it along to Theo inch by inch – but what was left was caught within the white-hot tangle of the Devil’s wire now. Once again, Sabrina pushed the short blade of the Alexandrian knife into that bramble –

– And the blade shattered in her hand.

_“No!”_ she cried. Her eyes flew open.

The Dark Lord’s eyes met hers. Triumph blazed in them. Her knees felt like they would give out beneath her. _Nick is gone he’s gone he’s gone forever because I –_

“Sabrina, we’re so close,” Roz shouted in her ear. “Don’t let Him win!”

She screwed her eyes shut again and reached for the tangle with her own hands. Catching hold of it was agony but she refused to let go. She grabbed the short length of thin black wire that was left, twisted it in her fist, and yanked. It didn’t budge.

The Dark Lord’s laughter filled her ears. “Every moment you waste on this foolish ritual, I am only growing stronger, Sabrina. Soon these chains will melt, and I will be free. Then you will truly feel my power.”

“Shut the fuck up!” she screamed back at him, not knowing what else to say. Her mind was wild with panic. She tugged again and this time felt the knot pull even tighter. She would have to try to untangle it further before she could pull it free, she thought, fear rising. “Let him go! Get out of his body!”

“This body?” The Dark Lord chuckled. “What could you want with this body, now? Why, this is only a vessel, a husk. You think a warlock – even one who claims to be the best binder and conjurer since Edward Spellman – could take my essence into him and not be burned from the inside out? That soul wire you’re pulling from me is not just black – it’s _charred_. It’s_ burnt to a crisp. _You’re a fool, Sabrina Spellman. The boy who loved you is gone forever.”

_He is the Master of Lies, Sabrina_. Lilith’s words echoed in her head. _He will say anything to break you. And He knows saying it from behind Mr. Scratch’s face will make it that much more painful. _Still, Sabrina faltered for a second. What if it was true? What if they were too late?

Theo stepped forward. “You must really like living in that body to tell such a shitty lie!” he shouted. 

“Yeah, are you embarrassed to admit a human body is an upgrade from your freaky goat hooves, you _dick_?” It was Harvey’s voice, spitting with anger.

Sabrina smiled in spite of her fear. Her friends calling the Dark Lord a dick and a shitty liar to His face – that was a story to tell if they got out of this. _When_ they got out of this, she thought with determination. Because they _were going to _get out of this.

Because she was going to tell Nick about it.

He would love that story.

She plunged her hands back into that white-hot tangle. Blisters rose on them and burst and rose again, but she had to find where that black wire ended. Finally, she saw it, but her heart sank. The heat from the red wire had fused the two together. She could not disentangle them because they were one. Instead, she began to rip them apart from the fork, like breaking apart a wishbone.

At the same time, she heard the sound of an iron chain being ripped from the cave wall. It clanked into the now-melted lake below with a deep splash. She imagined it plunging forever into the lake’s endless depths.

_“Sabrina, there’s no more time!”_ It was Lilith’s voice, and there was fear in it.

“I just… need… a few more…” Sabrina panted. The wires were pulling apart from each other, but slowly. Molten, gossamer strands stretched between them as they separated.

_“No! It must be now!”_

Sabrina pulled with all her might, screaming with the effort. She felt something snap. A split second later, Roz pulled what was left of the black wire out of her hands.

She opened her eyes to see the flaming ball of white wire in her blistered skin. Beyond that she could see the two human shapes that were peeling apart like a banana. The Dark Lord was still bound, red eyes ablaze in His hazy face, but the other figure sagged away from him, nearly upside down, the ends of his black hair swaying mere inches above the lake’s choppy surface. The figures were attached to each other now only at the ankles. But one of the Dark Lord’s arms was free and it was reaching for her and there was no time to waste any longer –

She whirled around to see the two small, human-shaped clay receptacles that Harvey had modeled. He had practiced his sculpting so diligently over the past months, but with the time constraints, only one of them was well shaped. Theo was closing up that one’s chest, and she knew it held a neat coil of black wire.

She threw herself to her knees beside the remaining one – only vaguely humanoid – and slammed the wire ball into the opening in its chest. It blazed there angrily. The clay began to melt around it. She tried to mold the clay over top of the ball, but the rapidly heating clay stuck to her burned hands and suddenly they were screaming with pain. Useless. She fell back on her heels, tears of pain and frustration streaming down her face.

“Sabrina, let me!” Theo leapt to her side and began molding the clay himself.

“You will _not_!” screamed the Dark Lord. He swung His arm. Theo went flying across the room, hit the wall, and lay still.

“Theo!” Sabrina cried, but she was too weak to run to him.

Lilith rose from Harvey’s side and went to stand between Sabrina and the Dark Lord, holding out her hands in front of her in a gesture of protection. “You two mortals, finish the job!”

Roz and Harvey were already rushing to the clay sculpture. The clay had melted even further, and Harvey had only one good arm, but they were closing it.

“Get out of the way, Lilith!” Lucifer roared. He attempted to wave her away like He had Theo, but she stood firm.

“I’ve stood behind you too long,” she replied. “It’s time I stood in front of you.”

He roared at her again. Suddenly His hazy features seemed to solidify before Sabrina’s eyes, but they no longer were Nick’s. His face looked like melted clay. Sabrina turned and saw that Roz and Harvey had fully encased the burning ball of wire in the clay receptacle.

Then she heard a splash from the direction of the Dark Lord. The sagging body was gone, and the black water of the lake rose in waves from where it had fallen.

_“Nick!”_ Without a second thought, she ran past Lilith.

“Mortals, is it done!?” Lilith cried.

The Dark Lord ripped another chain from the wall as He saw Sabrina emerge from Lilith’s protection.

“It’s done, it’s done!” Roz’s voice was high and frantic.

He held His hands before Him, outstretched to Sabrina –

_ “Tenebris som – !” _

The beginning of Lilith’s spell was the last thing Sabrina heard before she dove under the Lake of Oblivion’s black waters. Despite the Dark Lord’s heat, the water was still ice-cold. She opened her eyes and found it nearly too painfully cold to keep them open. But the water was clear, and she could see the body – Nick’s body – sinking slowly.

She willed herself to swim harder than she had ever swum before. She was not a strong swimmer – that’s why Nick had been the one to find her father’s manifesto at the bottom of the ocean – but she needed this more than anything she had ever needed before. Months of planning, her burned hands, Harvey’s injured shoulder, and Theo, poor Theo – all of that would not be made futile by Nick _drowning_ it would not _it would not_…

Her fingertips closed over his collar. She used it to drag him to her. She tried to swim upward but he was heavy in her arms. She noticed with oddly distant surprise that he was still wearing the elaborate faux leather costume he had worn when he bound the Dark Lord. _Well, of course. It’s not like he’s going to get a change of clothes in Hell_, she thought, kicking her legs but still feeling herself sinking. _Now that’s a funny idea. Wonder what kind of closet swap the demons get up to down here? Wait, where the heaven did _that_ come from? What a weird thought. Maybe it’s because my brain is losing oxygen. Maybe I need to breathe or else I’m going to drown too with Nick down here where the demons all get their clothes at Good Will and you can’t wear the same thing twice and Nick and I will always be in wet clothes because we drowned down here in the Ninth Circle of…_

Then her eyes blazed white, and she was rising up through the water like a jet. She was no longer cold, in fact she was warm, she was hot, and as she burst through the lake’s surface, the heat from her body was even drying her clothes. Nick himself was nearly dry in her arms as she floated above the lake, looking down on Lilith and Harvey and Roz. They looked back up at her in disbelief.

She turned her white eyes to the Dark Lord, who had fallen dormant again from Lilith’s sleeping spell. With a flick of her finger, His chains clanged back into the wall. She drove their spikes six feet deep into the silent stone. She took in a deep breath and then exhaled cold air over the chamber. The lake refroze instantly, the ice crawling up over the Dark Lord’s bodily prison, which no longer looked like Nick.

_Nick_…

She alighted back down on the stone bank of the lake. She laid Nick’s body down next to Roz and put her hands over him. She evaporated the water from his lungs, healed the burns left by the chains from his body. The burned, mottled skin on her own hands healed as she did so.

She dimly noticed Lilith and the others staring at her. _Let them look_, she thought with triumph. _Let them see my power_.

Wordlessly, she stood and went to Harvey. She put a hand on his injured shoulder.

“Sabrina, what – ” he started to ask, but then he looked down at where her hand had been and saw that he was no longer bleeding. His wound had closed. He looked back up at her in confusion and – fear. “What… _are_ you?”

She did not answer. Instead, she moved smoothly to where Theo lay on the stone floor. He was bleeding from his temple but breathing, she saw. Then this was easy. She put a hand on him and stitched his wound, cooled the swelling in his brain, popped his dislocated shoulder back into place. A moment later, his eyes fluttered open.

“’Brina,” he breathed, his eyes unfocused. “Did we get him?”

She smiled and nodded. Theo gave a wavery smile in return.

But her job was not done yet. She strode back to where she had left Nick’s body. Strength flowed through her. She would carry him out of here as effortlessly as Lilith had brought him in. Looking down at him, though, she frowned. She felt – she _knew_ – that she had healed him, but unlike Theo, he had not yet opened his eyes. _Why?_ For the first time since rising from the lake, she felt doubt.

And suddenly her eyes were no longer white. She fell forward to her knees before Nick’s body, feeling as though she had had the wind knocked out of her. Her arms were jelly. She felt Roz’s hands on her shoulders and her voice in her ear.

“‘Brina, you did it. We did it. We went to Hell and got your boyfriend back, just like you said.”

“We did,” Sabrina choked out. She looked down at his familiar face, no longer clenched in pain, and put a hand over her mouth to keep from sobbing. Tears welled in her eyes again. They were perhaps the first tears of happiness ever shed in the Ninth Circle of Hell.


	2. Friends and Warm Whiskey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for everyone who read the first chapter! I know it had very little Nabrina content, but it'll ramp up. I rated it M for a reason!

_She was swimming. Swimming down, down, down, and reaching out, out, out. He was falling below her, sinking. She kicked her feet furiously. She knew she was swimming faster than she ever had yet he remained inches away._

_With a final effort she twisted her fingers in his collar. She pulled him to her. His face was before hers – but it was hazy, strange, mottled… like melting clay…_

_His eyes burst open, and they were blood red. She saw beyond Him that another body was below, still falling, falling, forever, beyond her grasp. His hands clasped over her face as He laughed. She screamed –_

Sabrina woke with a start. Her heart was pounding. Sweat plastered her hair to her face.

“Mrow!” Salem leapt onto the bed beside her and pressed his face against hers, purring loudly. She gave him an absentminded scritch and relaxed back onto her pillow.

_It was just a dream_, she told herself. _The ritual worked. Everyone is safe._

Eventually her breathing and heartrate slowed. She threw the covers off and sat up. _Better check on Nick_, she thought. Perhaps he would be awake. She tried to keep her hopes from rising.

Still in her pajamas, she slowly ascended the stairs to the attic room. Outside the door, she took a deep breath. She reached for the doorknob, turned it, peered in…

Nick was unchanged from the last time she had seen him. He remained unconscious in Ambrose’s bed, his head and shoulders inclined on a stack of pillows, his eyes still closed. Sabrina sighed as she closed the door again and turned back down the hallway. It had been one week since she and the Fright Club had brought Nick back from Hell, and still no change.

Downstairs, the house was strangely quiet. With the small remaining contingent of Greendale witches still residing in the mortuary, it was unusual not to hear voices from the parlor or dining room. As she entered the kitchen, she discovered that only two other people remained in the house: Hilda and Zelda.

“Morning, aunties,” she said as she took a seat at the kitchen table.

“Sabrina.” Zelda looked over her paper, a steaming cup of tea on the table before her. She observed Sabrina’s state of dress with quiet sympathy. “Good morning.”

“Morning, love,” said Hilda, drying her hands with a rag. “You missed a warm breakfast, but I’ve got a bowl of cereal for you here.”

She took it from her. “Thanks, Auntie Hilda.” Aside from Ambrose’s empty chair, having only Spellmans in the kitchen made it feel like old times. Sabrina hadn’t seen her cousin in weeks, not since the last time he and Prudence had stopped by to strategize and regroup, not to mention enjoy a hot bath and a home-cooked meal. Although they had come close to confronting him many times, Father Blackwood had so far eluded them.

Hilda pulled a pitcher of milk from the refrigerator and poured it over Sabrina’s cereal. “So, has there been any change?” Hilda looked as hopeful as she had every morning for the past week.

Sabrina shook her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Zelda peer at her around her paper.

“Well, not to worry,” said Hilda reassuringly. “I’ll get you some more bone broth for his breakfast. He is still swallowing it, is he?”

She nodded. Caring for Nick in his unresponsive state had become an around-the-clock job. For the past week, he had been spoon-fed broth for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, usually by Sabrina. Hilda diligently went in every couple hours to reposition him to avoid pressure ulcers, not to mention perform less savory cleanup tasks. Whatever magic had kept his body in stasis had worn off after they left Hell. His face was already growing gaunt. She wondered how much longer he could last like this before they would have to seek greater help than they could provide at the mortuary.

“Where is everyone else?” she asked, hoping to change the subject.

“Oh, they’ve already gone down into the mines.”

“The mines?” she repeated, alarmed.

“Oh, sorry, not the literal mines,” giggled Hilda, “the metaphorical mines. The Academy. That’s what people have started calling it. You know, with all the toil and whatnot, removing the remnants of Blackwood’s Church of Judas and fixing it up so classes can start again.”

“It’s offensive.” Zelda snapped her paper with a sniff. “They act as though they’re being driven like cattle.”

“Says the cattle-driver,” Hilda said under her breath. Sabrina hid a grin in her cereal bowl.

“How has progress been going, Auntie Zee?”

“Slowly,” said Zelda emphatically. She took a long drag of her cigarette. “You would think that six months would be more than enough to prepare a school to open again.”

“Now, now.” Hilda spooned some broth into a bowl. “There’s only a handful of them left, and Elspeth and Melvin have been doing their best.”

“Those two are too easily distracted from the task at hand. Commissioning a statue of Lilith to replace the one of Blackwood was completely frivolous.”

Sabrina wished she had Ambrose here to roll her eyes at. The statue of Lilith was one of Zelda’s favorite subjects of complaint – the cost, the time, the _frivolity _– even though Sabrina knew she was secretly gratified by Melvin and Elspeth’s commitment to the new church.

“Any plans today, Sabrina?” asked Hilda.

“Roz was asking to get together, but I don’t know if I can leave here.” She picked listlessly at her now-soggy cereal. “What if Nick wakes up?”

She saw the look that passed between her aunties. They clearly had been talking to each other about her, about Nick. _Maybe they don’t think he’ll ever wake up. Maybe they’ve seen something like this before and the person just wasted away to nothing and they just don’t have the heart to tell me_…

“Sabrina, you haven’t left the mortuary in a week. You’ve been in pajamas for the past three days.” Zelda set down her paper. “Mr. Scratch is in good hands here. You can spare the time to see your friends.” Hilda, leaning on the back of a chair, nodded.

She knew they were right. Leaving for a few hours wouldn’t make a difference. Nick showed no signs of waking up any time soon. He probably wouldn’t even know she was gone.

Still, what if he woke up and she wasn’t there?

“Well… maybe I’ll ask Roz if she wants to come here,” she finally said. “That way I can see her but still be here if there are any changes.”

Hilda put the bowl of broth before her and smiled. “That sounds lovely, darling.”

“At the very least it’ll get you out of those pajamas.” Zelda picked up her paper again and snapped it open.

***

“It’s so good to see you, ’Brina! It feels like it’s been forever.” Roz’s embrace was firm and warm.

“I know! After months of seeing each other almost every day, it’s weird to go a full week without at least getting a shake at Dr. Cee’s.” They broke apart and smiled at each other. “Come in, it’s just us. Everyone else is at the Academy.” She ushered Roz in off the porch.

Roz took a seat at the kitchen table, and Sabrina started a kettle of tea. Hilda’s hospitality had rubbed off on her; it didn’t feel right to have a guest over without offering a piping hot cup.

“I don’t have a lot of time,” said Roz apologetically. “I have a church thing in a bit, and then there’s a horror double feature downtown tonight – which you are welcome to come to, by the way, if you feel up to it. I really just wanted to see how you were doing.”

Sabrina fell into the seat across from her with a sigh. “Gee, where to start? I’m dead tired from defeating the Dark Lord – again. I’m still having horrible nightmares of the ritual going wrong in every way possible. My aunts are _clearly_ talking about how pathetic I am behind my back. And it’s been a full week and Nick still hasn’t woken up.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “Oh, and this is the first time I’ve been in real clothes in three days. So, all in all, I’m pretty peachy, I guess.”

Roz smiled in commiseration. “I kinda figured.”

Sabrina looked at her and laughed. “I’m a mess.”

“A _hot_ mess.”

“Thank Lilith for small favors.”

Roz laughed. “So… Nick still hasn’t woken up?”

Sabrina shook her head. “Nope. Still out cold.” She checked the clock. “Actually, it’s about time for his lunch. Want to help me feed him?”

Roz raised an eyebrow. “Um, sure… Is it hard?”

“Not really, but it’s nice to have someone else there to help keep him upright.”

“No, ’Brina, I meant…” Roz put a hand over Sabrina’s. “I meant, is it hard _for you_? Seeing him like this, after all we went through to bring him back. And he’s still not really… _back_.”

The kettle began to sing. Sabrina stood and went to it. “I mean, yes,” she said, grateful for the opportunity to distract herself from the emotions that Roz’s question had brought to the surface. She pulled two teacups from the cupboard and tried to focus on filling them. “Taking care of him like this is weird but it’s not actually _hard_. What’s hard is not knowing when he’s going to wake up.” _Or if_, she added silently.

Roz seemed to know what Sabrina had left unsaid. “He will wake up, Sabrina,” she said. “I know he will.”

“How? Did you have a vision?” Sabrina set Roz’s cup of tea in front of her and took her seat again.

“No, not a vision,” she admitted. “it’s more like… a feeling. Everything will work out.”

Sabrina silently sipped her tea, considering this. She would trust a vision a lot more than a feeling. “Do you think… you could _try_ to have a vision?” she finally asked. “Like, could you touch him and see if you see anything?”

Roz was quiet for a moment. “I mean… If you think it would help. I could try. But, ’Brina,” she said softly, “what if you don’t like what I see?”

Sabrina swallowed. Her throat felt tight. “Even if it’s bad… Even if you see that he’ll never wake up…” she said slowly. “At least I’ll know. That I should… move on…” Her eyes stung. She looked up at Roz and saw that she had tears in her eyes, too.

“Then of course,” Roz said simply. “Let me at him.”

A few minutes later, Sabrina led Roz up the creaking stairs to the attic room. She balanced the tray of broth on her arm as she turned the doorknob. She couldn’t stop her heart from pounding a few times as she thought, _Maybe?_ But no, there was still no change.

She set the tray down and sat next to Nick on the bed. She brushed some hair away from his forehead. A few nights ago, she and Hilda had bathed him. She had been too embarrassed to help Hilda with everything – it would have felt wrong, seeing him, touching him, in that sterile scenario – but she had washed his hair. It had been unexpectedly intimate. When they had been together, Nick had been strangely defensive about his hair, meticulous about styling it.

One time in her room, on her bed, fully clothed, with his hand on the small of her back and his lips on hers, she had buried a hand in his hair. It was soft and smelled nice, like rosemary. She twisted her fingers through his curls, scraping her nails along his scalp. She was pleased when he shivered.

He smiled against her lips. “You’re giving me goosebumps, Spellman.”

“I have that effect.” She felt mischievous. She dragged her nails over the back of his neck and was gratified when he shuddered again, even let out a soft noise.

“You certainly do.” He rolled onto his back so she was on top of him. Her hand was pinned under his head, making it hard to move. He tried to bring her face down to his but she pulled back.

“You did that to get me to stop,” she said accusatorily, pulling her hand from under him. She raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Scratch, are you ticklish?”

He laughed as she tried to run her fingers along his sides and caught her hands in his. “No, not usually. I think it’s just…” He laced his fingers through hers, avoiding eye contact. “…You. Touching me.”

She felt a smile spread across her lips. She felt the same when he touched her, but that seemed obvious. He knew what he was doing, generally what buttons to press on a witch, and he used that knowledge to great effect, without ever going further than she asked him to. But to hear that she had the same effect on him? It was exciting. It was a topic she wanted to explore further.

“That’s a nice line, but I touch you all the time and you don’t get this defensive,” she said teasingly. “Is it just your hair?” She extricated a hand from his and went to bury it in his hair again.

He caught her wrist before she could do so. “It’s not a line. I couldn’t use a line on you if I tried. You may have noticed from my early attempts at flirting.” He laughed as she strained against his grip, trying to tousle his hair. “You’re incorrigible, Spellman.”

“And _you’re_ weird about your hair!” She slipped her other hand out of his and went for his hair again.

They wrestled for a bit, giggling as she tried to touch it. Finally, breathing hard from the effort and their laughter, they came to an impasse: she straddled his chest, both knees pinning down his arms, while he grasped her wrists in his hands. She looked down at him, grinning. He flicked his eyes down at the junction of her thighs, inches from his face, and back up to meet her gaze. He bit his lip.

Something leapt inside her at the simple glance. _Look how close you are to me, _it said. _I could… if you wanted… _

“This is a lot of effort to go to just to keep me from touching your hair,” she said, gesturing at their predicament.

He closed his eyes and sighed. “Okay. Yes. I’m weird about my hair. There are only so many ways it looks good, and it never stays that way, and if someone else messes with it, I have to style it all over again. The trials of being a curly-haired man. There. Are you happy?”

“I knew it,” she said triumphantly. “Nicholas Scratch is weird about his hair!”

“You’re going to have to keep that down.”

She took in a deep breath. _“Nicholas Scratch is weird about his – !”_

He let go of her wrists and pulled her down to him, rolled them over so he was on top of her. “Shut up, Spellman,” he growled, his eyes sparkling. She was giggling again as he kissed her.

Now, here in Ambrose’s room, sitting next to him on the bed, she could touch it all she wanted. Unstyled, it was curly and wild. It no longer smelled like rosemary, but it was still just as soft as that day in her room.

Roz’s hushed voice brought her back to the present. “Should we be quiet?” she asked, stepping softly as she crossed the room.

Sabrina smiled ruefully. “It makes no difference, unfortunately. Believe me, I’ve tried a lot of things over the past week. Apparently, I’m not above yelling at someone who’s comatose.”

Roz took a seat on the other side of the bed. “He looks like he’s sleeping,” she breathed. “Like he could wake up at any minute.”

“Yep. Fools me every time.”

Roz seemed a little nervous. “Do you want to do food first or vision first?”

“I mean, you’ll have to touch him either way, right?”

“Sure, but if the vision doesn’t come right away, I’ll have to concentrate. It could take a little while.”

Sabrina looked at Nick for a long moment. She could almost convince herself that he would crack an eyelid at her and grin. _See something you like, Spellman?_

“To be honest, Roz,” she said, “I’m dying to know if you’ll see anything at all. Do you think you could…?”

Roz nodded. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, let it out, and put a hand on Nick’s arm.

Right away, Sabrina could tell she was seeing something. Roz sucked in a big breath, her body ramrod straight as though she’d been struck by lightning. Her eyelids fluttered. Sabrina glanced at Nick’s face, but it was unchanged.

Almost as quickly as it came, the vision seemed to leave Roz. The breath went out of her in a whoosh, and she fell forward, gasping.

Sabrina leaned in eagerly. “What did you see?”

Roz took a few more deep breaths. She looked up, an uncertain look on her face. “What I saw was… confusing,” she said slowly.

“What was it? What was confusing about it?” Sabrina couldn’t contain herself. “Is he going to wake up?”

Roz swallowed and looked away. Sabrina’s heart sank. “That’s the thing,” said Roz. “I don’t know. What I saw… I had seen before. Or at least, I could imagine I had seen it before.”

Sabrina frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Normally, my visions show me the future. But this one…” She shook her head. “You were in your red dress. From the Sweethearts Dance, remember? And Nick was in his tux. You were coming down the stairs, and he said, ‘Sabrina, you look stunning. I mean, seriously – ’”

“‘I’m stunned,’” Sabrina finished sadly. She looked at him lying there on the bed. She could still remember his look of amazement as she had appeared on the stairs that night, as though he couldn’t believe his luck that she had chosen to be with him. “That’s what he said to me that night before we left for the dance.”

Roz bit her lip. “That’s what I thought. I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t understand why the Cunning showed me the past, but… at least I got to see something nice.” She smiled lopsidedly at her. “You looked so happy that night, ’Brina.”

“So did you, Roz.” She squeezed her hand. “And you don’t have to be sorry. We’re just… no better and no worse off than we were before.” She let out a long sigh. “Well, let’s get some food in him, shall we? Maybe he’ll get so sick of being served nothing but broth that he’ll have to wake up to complain to the manager.”

***

Hilda returned, muttering about working with Zelda at the Academy being bloody impossible, just as Roz was leaving. She gave Roz a tin of cookies and a quick kiss on the cheek and sent her off. Sabrina waved goodbye beside her.

“Now then, Sabrina,” Hilda said, turning to her. “I’m going to take my frustration out on some weeds. Fancy joining me?”

“Sure,” she replied. “I’ve got enough frustration right now to weed a football field.”

Soon, they were on their knees in the dirt of the garden, Sabrina in some old threadbare overalls, Hilda in a wide-brimmed hat.

“Sometimes I pretend I’m ripping out her hair,” Hilda confided, her teeth gritted. Sabrina didn’t have to ask who she meant.

Together, they made good progress. Sabrina’s thoughts drifted to Roz’s vision. The Sweethearts Dance had been one of the best nights of their time together – and one of the most confusing. Nick’s exhilaration at Baxter High, dancing with him, kissing him in the library – all of it had made her feel like she could live in both worlds and have him by her side. But then Amalia had appeared, and she had remembered how dangerous the witch world was. The ensuing events had made her question trusting him. It was a question that still lingered.

“Well, look who it is! My two favorite Spellmans.”

The voice was too good to be true. Sabrina and Hilda both shot up and looked in its direction. Ambrose and Prudence were trudging up the drive, their expressions travel worn but glad to be home.

“Minus Auntie Zelda, of course,” Ambrose added, grinning.

“Dear boy,” Hilda sniffled. She rubbed at her nose, smearing soil over her face. “He’s home.”

“Ambrose!” Sabrina jumped the short fence surrounding the garden and ran down the drive. Ambrose tossed down his pack to catch her as she threw her arms around him, her heart swelling. She hadn’t known how deeply she missed him until just now. “It’s so good to see you.”

He returned her hug. “You, too, cousin.”

“What am I, Sabrina, chopped liver?” Prudence raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow at her. The hilts of her twin swords framed her face. 

Sabrina rolled her eyes as she stepped away from Ambrose. “I’m glad you’re all right, too, Prudence.”

“Well, come in, come in,” said Hilda, waving her hands at them. “I’ve got some bread in the oven, and I’ll put the kettle on.” Sabrina could see glad tears shining in her aunt’s eyes at the sight of Ambrose safe and sound.

Ambrose put an arm around Hilda as they walked back up the drive. “Have you got any more of those lemon biscuits, auntie? I dreamt only of them all throughout Nepal and China.”

“He also _spoke_ only of them all throughout Nepal and China,” Prudence added wryly.

“Auntie Hilda’s baking may now be legendary among the covens of Kathmandu,” he admitted. “As it should be.”

Hilda giggled. “Oh, you sweet boy, you flatter me. We only have a few lemon biscuits left but I can whip up some more for you in a jiffy.”

Twenty minutes later, Ambrose and Prudence had begun to settle in. With Hilda preoccupied with baking and Prudence having retired to draw herself a bath, Sabrina and Ambrose stepped into the parlor. Ambrose gripped a steaming mug of ginger tea in his hand. Sabrina noticed for the first time that it was bandaged.

“What happened?” she asked as they took their usual seats on the settee.

“Ah, a good story.” He took a sip of tea and closed his eyes, enjoying it deeply. “Something about Auntie Hilda making you a cuppa. Warms the heart.”

She smiled. She could say the same about having Ambrose back in the house.

“Anyway, the story.” He settled in, his eyes sparkling. “Prudence and I got into a car chase with Father Blackwood, right in downtown Shanghai. It was just like in the movies. I even shouted, ‘Follow that cab!’ Of course, the cabbie didn’t understand English, so some of the effect was lost.” He took another sip of tea. “Unfortunately, we lost Blackwood after the Yangpu Bridge.”

“And the hand?”

“Oh, the hand injury itself is not the interesting part. I just slammed it in the car door as we were jumping in. Hurt like Heaven.”

She laughed. “So, you lost him in Shanghai. Where are you off to next?”

He shrugged. “Not sure quite yet. There are a couple places he could have gone. Prudence thinks Myanmar, I think Papua New Guinea. And, to be honest, we both think eventually, someday, he’ll come back to Greendale. He won’t be able to help himself, the arrogant bastard.”

She could not suppress a shudder at the thought. “I hope that doesn’t happen any time soon. At least not until the Church of Lilith is fully established. And all of us are… fully recovered.”

A brief silence fell as she thought of Nick. Ambrose set down his tea on the side table and turned to fully face her on the settee. “Tell me what happened, cousin,” he said, taking her hand. “Hilda filled me in a bit while she was showing us to a guest room, but I want to hear it from you.”

She told him about the journey into Hell, the ritual, pulling Nick out of the lake, defeating the Dark Lord again. He let out an appreciative whistle at her success.

“That’s a Spellman,” he said, patting her thigh proudly.

But then she had to tell him about bringing Nick back. Harvey had carried him, and she herself had had to stumble back up the stone steps supported between Roz and Theo, her power gone. By the time they had gotten him back to the mortuary, they were all little better than walking corpses, the day’s adrenaline drained. Sabrina had tumbled into bed in her Hell-soaked clothes that night and slept for nearly fourteen hours. When she’d come to, she had cursed herself, sure that Nick had already woken up and she had missed it. She’d gone careening up the stairs to Ambrose’s room, her heart rising in her throat as she burst into the room…

“And he’s been unconscious ever since?” Ambrose asked.

She nodded glumly. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”

Ambrose drummed his fingers on the back of the couch, his face thoughtful. “Magical comas? Loads. Even magical comas after demonic possession? Sure. But magical comas after binding the Dark Lord inside your body? Now we’re talking about something altogether unique.” He grinned at her. “We call that the Sabrina Spellman special.”

She smiled. “But magical comas in general… what do you know about them?”

He shrugged. “Honestly, they’re quite similar to, you know, mortal comas, as far as I know. Usually they don’t last more than a week. If they do…” He trailed off.

“If they do…?”

He looked at her seriously. “If they do, it becomes more likely – not a certainty, mind you, but more likely – that… the person never wakes up.”

She broke his gaze. Tears threatened to fall.

Ambrose took her hands in his. They were warm. “Now, cousin, that’s the worst-case scenario. You can’t focus on that. Another part of the Sabrina Spellman special is that she always gets her way. Moves Hell and Earth to do it, might break a few of the laws of Satan and man, but she gets it.”

She laughed weakly.

“Besides, look at it this way,” he continued. “If most magical comas only last a week, then Nicholas should be up any day now. His alarm clock is going to go off. He’s got school.”

She squeezed his hands once and let them go to swipe at her runny nose. “Thanks, Ambrose. I’ll try to think of the glass as half full.”

He sat back and picked up his tea. “Now, forgive the selfish question, but I have to ask… why is Nicholas in _my_ room, cousin? Not that he hasn’t been before, of course, but in the old days he’s was never completely unconscious – nor completely clothed.”

Sabrina rolled her eyes. “With the remaining members of the Church of Night bunking up in all the guest rooms, yours was the only free bed available. We didn’t know you and Prudence would be stopping by.” _Or that it would take Nick this long to wake up_.

“Not happy to see me, coz?” he teased.

She couldn’t bring herself to respond jokingly in kind. “On the contrary, Ambrose, you have no idea how glad I am you’re here.”

“You’ve been through it, haven’t you?”

“Hell and back,” she said wearily. “Literally.”

“That’s certainly no way to spend a birthday. Which reminds me…” He set down his tea again, stood, and turned to the large leather pack he had dropped just inside the parlor.

He rummaged in the pack for a moment before withdrawing a small burlap bag. He dropped it in her outstretched hands. It was cinched with twine tied in a small bow. The object inside was strangely heavy. She felt it through the bag but couldn’t figure out what it was. She raised an eyebrow at Ambrose, but he just shrugged, grinning.

“Don’t shake it, cousin. It’s quite old.” He gestured at it. “Go on, open it.”

She untied the bow and reached into the bag. She withdrew a spoon carved from dark stone, wide but shallow, with a narrow handle. She looked up at Ambrose in confusion. “A spoon?”

“A lodestone spoon,” he said, rocking on his heels. He looked very pleased with himself. “A curiosity from our travels in China. Traditionally, mortals used them as compasses; place it on the ground and it will roll so the handle points due south. But ancient witches adapted them for their own purposes. This one… May I?” He took it from her hands and stood in the center of the parlor. “This one will point in the direction of the last person to touch it to their lips. Observe.”

He put it delicately to his lips, as though he were sampling a soup. Then he placed it on the ground and took a step back. The spoon rolled in an arc along its side until the handle pointed directly at him.

“Very cool,” Sabrina said, but Ambrose held up a hand.

“The demonstration is not over, coz.” He began to walk in a rough circle around the spoon. Its handle followed him like a dutiful dog. He reversed direction, sped up, slowed down, even leapt over the spoon itself, making Sabrina laugh, and still it pointed true. Finally, he stooped to pick it up and held it out to her.

“Perhaps not the most practical,” he allowed as she took it, “but sure to be a hit at parties.”

“You mean because you have to get the person to sip from it before you can find them?”

He nodded.

She turned the heavy spoon over in her hands, thinking. “Actually, I’ve been doing a lot of spoon-feeding these days. It would be easy enough to get it tuned in to Nick. Not that he’s going anywhere fast.” She sighed.

Ambrose regarded her sympathetically. “It seems like you could use a break, cousin. Let me and Prudence take over spoon-feeding duties for tonight. Why don’t you get out of the house? See your mortal friends?”

She shook her head. “Ambrose, I couldn’t do that. You and Prudence only just got back yourselves.”

“Which is exactly why we could use a quiet night in. And right now, who’s quieter than Nicholas?” His eyes said he hoped it was a gentle enough joke.

She smiled in spite of herself. “Roz did say that there’s a horror double feature downtown tonight.”

Ambrose put his hands on her shoulders. “Then I insist.”

“But – ”

“Sabrina. Please.” He looked at her with such warmth and gentleness that she felt tears prick at her eyes. “It would be my honor to give the girl who defeated the Dark Lord – twice – a night off.”

***

Hours later, she, Harvey, Roz, and Theo spilled out of the theater with the rest of the horror double feature crowd. Darkness had fallen during the movies, and the November air was chilly. Sabrina pulled her red coat around her.

“_The Body Snatcher _and _Nosferatu_,” she said jubilantly. “A great way to spend an evening.”

“I gotta say, I wasn’t expecting a silent movie to be so interesting,” said Harvey.

“Wait, was that your first silent film?” Roz asked incredulously, looking up at him. “You’ve never seen a Buster Keaton movie?”

Harvey gave her a weird look. “You mean, like, _Batman_?”

Now Roz looked just as confused as he did.

Sabrina burst out laughing. “Harvey, that’s _Michael _Keaton. Buster Keaton is a famous actor from the twenties.”

“Yeah, haven’t you ever seen the video of the guy with the house falling down around him?” Theo asked. “Or hanging from the hands on a clock tower?”

“Ohh, the crazy stunt guy,” said Harvey. “Like the real-life Bugs Bunny.”

Roz laughed and gave him a kiss.

“So…?” said Theo, looking at them all. “What do you say? Dr. Cerberus’?”

Roz and Harvey nodded emphatically. Sabrina hesitated for a moment but shook her head. “Sorry, you guys,” she said. “I’ve gotta get back. With my luck, these few hours away will have been the time Nicholas chose to finally wake up. But it has been a blast.” She hugged each of them in turn.

“Are you sure we can’t help out at all?” Theo looked eager and sympathetic at the same time.

Sabrina smiled at them. “You guys have done so much already. Too much. Going to Hell and back to help me out. I couldn’t ask for better friends.”

They all looked embarrassed but proud. “’Brina…” said Roz sheepishly, taking her hands.

“Thanks for a great night. See you soon?” Sabrina squeezed Roz’s hands and then turned away, toward home.

It was hard to leave them, but she was grateful for the quiet time. The way home was not too long, and walking alone in the cool night air seemed to allow her room to think in a way being alone in the mortuary did not. She let her mind wander.

She thought about what it would be like when Nick did wake up. She longed for it… and, the more she thought about it, dreaded it. In the past week, she had returned again and again to the question that Lilith had asked her, about invalidating Nick’s sacrifice. She knew that the answer she had given had been true – Nick would have done the same for her, without question – but that answer also set aside her own complicated feelings about him.

He loved her, had told her multiple times that he would never hurt her, but he had lied to her, betrayed her to the Dark Lord. She cared for him deeply – maybe even loved him, though that word did not yet feel right – but learning of the devotion the Dark Lord had asked of him had taken all of her memories of their time together and twisted them into something else, something that made her feel sick to her stomach. She could not think of any time he had touched her, kissed her, held her hand, without wondering if he had done it simply to please the Dark Lord. Over the past six months, as she planned his rescue, his betrayal had stolen through her memories of him, infecting them all with doubt. Had anything been real, or was it all built on lies? Now that she no longer had the rescue mission to focus on, the pain had returned, ten times worse than before.

Yes, he had sacrificed himself to save her and the world. As far as the world was concerned, he had been redeemed. But if she was being honest with herself, she still had not truly forgiven him.

_So, what do I even say to him when he does wake up? “Welcome back, honey, I’m still pissed at you”? “I brought you back from Hell, but I may never trust you again”? _She grimaced as her heels crunched the gravel of the mortuary driveway. The walk was over, and she was no closer to knowing how that conversation would go.

Lights shone through the windows throughout the house. As she approached the front door, she could hear many voices. Everyone was back from the Academy. _That was the last quiet time I’ll get tonight_, she thought.

The atmosphere inside the mortuary was warm and bright. Someone had lit the fireplace, and Ambrose was merrily pouring drinks in the kitchen. Prudence, Dorcas, and Agatha, happily reunited, were sequestered in the dining room, talking and laughing quietly. Melvin, Elspeth, and the other members of the Church of Lilith were in the parlor playing cards.

“Looks like a party,” she said to Ambrose as she took off her coat.

He greeted her with a smile and offered her a drink. After a moment’s hesitation, she took it. “Have a nice time at the movies, coz?” he asked, pouring another for himself.

“Great. It was nice to get away.” She took a sip of her drink as a way to force herself to wait before asking about Nick. It burned nicely on the way down. “Any news while I was gone?” she asked, attempting nonchalance.

Ambrose smirked. “Your feigned indifference needs work, coz,” he teased. “Alas, no. Nicholas remains asleep. But perhaps our revelry will wake him up if we get raucous enough.”

“Well, then.” She smiled mischievously and clinked glasses with him. “Let’s turn it up.”

Hours later, the fire had died down and most of the partiers had gone upstairs to bed. Only she, Ambrose, Prudence, and the aunties remained in the parlor. Zelda, several martinis in, was drowsing in the armchair. Ambrose lounged against Prudence on the settee, her fingers playing through his hair.

“It’s lovely to have you home, darling,” said Hilda to Ambrose from the rocking chair. She had a cross-stitch in her lap but had been doing and redoing the same few stitches for the past hour as she enjoyed some wine.

“It’s lovely to _be_ home, auntie,” he replied.

Sabrina lazed against another armchair, her mind pleasantly hazy. She swirled her drink in its glass. The ice had long since melted. She was tired but hated to leave the warmth of the parlor. Still, it was probably time.

“I’d better check on Nick,” she announced. She made to get up, but Ambrose waved a hand at her.

“Now, now, cousin, I said Prudence and I would take over your Nicholas duties for the night, and I meant the whole night,” he said. He plucked at Prudence’s sleeve. “Prudence, see to young Nicholas.”

Prudence narrowed her eyes at him. “So when you say, ‘Prudence and I,’ you really just mean, ‘Prudence’.”

He craned his head to plant a kiss on her. “Think of it as a thank you for Chengdu.”

She rolled her eyes but extricated herself from him. “Very well, but this is the last time I thank you for Chengdu.”

“He’ll need to be repositioned, too,” Hilda called after her, picking out her stitch again. “Bed sores.”

Prudence waved to show she had understood and disappeared upstairs.

“What happened in Chengdu?” Sabrina asked Ambrose.

He put a finger to his lips and winked. “Nothing family-friendly.” Hilda let out an uncomfortable giggle.

Zelda snorted and jerked in the armchair. Her eyes flew open. A look of embarrassment crossed her face to see all eyes on her. She sat back upright in the chair and said with an attempt at dignity, “The duties of High Priestess can be quite tiring.” She buried her nose in the remnants of her martini.

Sabrina and Ambrose exchanged a look, both suppressing smiles.

Upstairs, a door slammed. Hurried footsteps sounded in the hallway. Everyone in the parlor looked at each other in confusion.

“Who is that?” asked Zelda, miffed. “Slamming doors in this old house.”

“It must be Prudence,” said Sabrina, sitting upright. _It must be Nick. Maybe he’s – _

Prudence appeared in the doorway. She was out of breath, her look alert. Her eyes met Sabrina’s.

“He’s awake.”

Sabrina was on her feet in a flash, suddenly sober. She pushed past Prudence, barely hearing what she was saying.

“…a little disoriented. He doesn’t know where he is, but he knew me, knew who he – Are you listening to me, Sabrina?” Prudence shouted after her.

Sabrina could dimly hear the others get up to follow her. Prudence was close behind, but even her voice sounded as if it were coming from a great distance. She hurried up the stairs, her excitement growing the same way it had for every morning check-in, every spoon-fed meal, every late-night visit for the past seven days.

_He’s going to be awake this time. He’s really going to be awake this time._

Her hand gripped the doorknob. She felt unstoppable, a gale, a whirlwind. She threw the door open.

He _was_ awake. He was sitting up in bed on his own strength, looking around the room curiously. He turned to her as she burst in, surprise etched on his face.

“Nick,” she gasped. “You’re awake.” Days of wondering what to say to him when it happened, and in the end, her excitement and relief made it simple. She caught her breath for a moment in the doorway. It was so good to see him, his dark eyes open. She smiled and went to sit beside him on the bed.

He blinked at her in surprise, his expression still confused. “Yeah…” he croaked. His voice was weak from lack of use. “Apparently I’ve been out a while?”

Prudence appeared in the doorway, breathing hard but still making an attempt at dignity. “Like I said, Sabrina, he’s a little disoriented,” she said, her tone annoyed. “He doesn’t know where he is.”

Sabrina looked at him sympathetically. He looked back at her through bleary, uncertain eyes. She tried to give him a reassuring smile. “You’re at the mortuary, Nick. In Ambrose’s room. You’ve been out of it for a week.”

“Ambrose’s room? In the mortuary?” he said slowly.

Prudence gave Sabrina a look that said, _See? I told you. _

Ambrose, Zelda, and Hilda appeared just behind her in the hallway, craning their necks to get a glimpse around Prudence. Sabrina glanced at Nick. He was looking more overwhelmed by the second. She took his hand in hers. He looked up at her, startled.

“It’s okay,” she said softly. “It’s a lot to take in. But you’re back. We got you out.”

He looked down at her hand on his, quiet for a moment. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the others give each other concerned looks.

“Spellman mortuary?” he finally said.

_Wow, he’s really out of it. _She tried to give a reassuring smile and nodded. “Yes, that’s right.” She rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand, bending down her head, trying to meet his eyes.

Under hers, his hands were still. He considered for a long moment. Finally, he looked up. “You’re Sabrina Spellman.”

She withdrew her hands as though scorched. It was something about the way he said it, or maybe the questioning look in his eyes. She nodded wordlessly, clutching her hands to her chest.

He took in her reaction almost… politely. Sabrina had seen that look hundreds of times before, when Hilda or Ambrose prepared to discuss funeral arrangements or autopsy results with a mortuary client. The quiet distance, the knowledge that what was about to be said would cause pain, but that it was unavoidable; the person would have to be told.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his discomfort apparent. “This is a little awkward. I can tell that you know me, but I have to tell you – ”

And she knew what he would say before he said it, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

“ – I don’t remember you at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He's finally up! Let the Nabrina content flow!
> 
> I played around with the ending of this for a while, but ultimately I thought that Nick would try to figure out where he was and who he was with - seeing if he could jog his memory - before revealing he didn't remember. He probably had heard of Spellman mortuary and Sabrina through the Church of Night or Prudence.
> 
> As for Nick being weird about his hair, has anyone else noticed how in the first season it looks like he straightens it or something? I just like to imagine he's trying out a lot of different looks. I also drew on some of my personal life experience being married to a curly-haired man who struggles with making his hair look good. Haha!


	3. What Witch Girlfriends Are For

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter three!
> 
> This one earns the 'M' rating for the good stuff, not just the swears. ◕ ◡ ◕

“I don’t remember you at all.”

She felt as though the room were stretching away from her, or perhaps she was falling backwards. Maybe someone had hooked a fishing line into her stomach and was using it to yank her away from this scene. That would explain the wrenching in her gut and why she could only hear everyone else as though from a great distance.

_The Dark Lord was right. He said Nick was gone. He said Nick was burned from the inside out he said the boy who loved you is gone forever and He was right He – _

She closed her eyes and tried to breathe. She forced herself to fight down her rising panic, clawing her way back to the present. She couldn’t lose it. Not here. Not now.

She opened her eyes again. Her face flushed as she realized Nick was looking at her with a combination of confusion, concern, and… regret?

“ – much _do _you remember, Nicholas?” Hilda was asking gently.

Nick’s eyes left Sabrina’s to turn to Hilda. “I’m not sure… The last thing I remember is… classes at the Academy starting again, I think? But even that is hazy.” He pressed his fingers to his temple. “What month is it?”

Hilda and Zelda exchanged a look. “Well, dear… it’s November…” Hilda started gently, “…of the next year.”

Shock was evident on his face. He was dumbstruck. Sabrina longed to take his hand to comfort him, but she couldn’t bear to see that lack of recognition in his eyes again. She felt sick at the thought.

Finally, he asked, hoarsely: “I was unconscious for a year?”

“No, no, not nearly that long, dear,” said Hilda reassuringly. No one else in the room seemed able to speak. Sabrina knew she certainly couldn’t. “There was… an event… It’s actually quite a long story, love. Perhaps for later. The important thing now is that you’re all right. Sabrina saved you.”

This time she was ready to meet his gaze when he turned to her. She tried to force her expression into some semblance of impassiveness. But she wasn’t ready for what she saw in his eyes this time.

It was recognition. But not of the kind she had hoped for.

“You’re the daughter of Edward Spellman,” he said, some understanding seeming to dawn on his face. “I’ve read your father’s journals. He was a brilliant binder and conjurer.”

The admiration in his eyes made her heart plummet. It was distant, impersonal. Like he was simply… a fan. Not her boyfriend, her partner, the one person who had believed her without question.

She bowed her head, overwhelmed again. Her throat was tight and her eyes were burning.

After a moment, she heard Zelda push past Prudence and the others. Her tone was husky from drink but still fierce. “Yes, Sabrina is Edward Spellman’s daughter. She is also the witch who journeyed to Hell and back – literally – to save your soul from eternal torture.”

Sabrina could feel Nick’s eyes on her, but she couldn’t bear to look up.

“I-I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” he finally said.

“That’s clear, Mr. Scratch.” Zelda’s voice was tight.

“Now, now, then, Nicholas has been through it himself,” Hilda said diplomatically. “I’m sure he’s a bit overwhelmed, as we all are. Shall I make us all some tea? Alright? We’ll all feel better after a cuppa. Will you help me, Sabrina?”

Sabrina looked up. Her aunt Hilda had a smile plastered on, but her eyes were full of concern. She held out a hand, and Sabrina took it, trembling.

Nick started to move as if to get out of bed. “I can – ”

Hilda held out a hand, and he stilled. “Don’t you move a muscle, Mr. Scratch, we’ll be back in a jiffy. And you shouldn’t try to do much in your state, anyway, not until you’ve had some days to regain your strength. Ambrose, Prudence, you stay with Nicholas and figure out the extent of his… problem... will you?” Then Hilda’s arms were around Sabrina’s shoulders, gently but firmly ushering her out of the room and into the corridor.

Sabrina’s mind was somehow both blank and racing – _Nick is alive Nick is alive but Nick is gone he’s alive he’s gone he’s gone the boy who loved you is gone forever_ – and she barely felt Hilda guiding her down the stairs. She was dimly aware that Zelda had left with them. She made it to the kitchen table without knowing how. Her eyes were dry and staring as Hilda filled the kettle.

Zelda broke the silence. “He remembers nothing of Sabrina,” she said grimly, taking a seat at the table. She lit a cigarette and took an angry puff.

Hilda sighed as she lit the burner. “Binding the Dark Lord within his body, the trauma of it, must have damaged those memories, being the most recent... poor dear.”

Zelda sniffed pitilessly. “Sabrina walks through the Gates of Hell, cleaves Lucifer from his bodily vessel, drags him back through the flames, and this is her reward?”

“Now, sister, that’s not fair – ”

“I mean, first he breaks her heart by betraying her to the Dark Lord and then he breaks her heart again by allowing the Dark Lord to erase – ”

“You know very well _that _was not under his control – ”

“ – and after all of that, he has the gall to express not an _ounce _of gratitude – ”

Sabrina slammed her hands down on the table. Both of her aunts jumped. “Auntie Zee, stop it! It’s not Nick’s fault he can’t – can’t re-remember – me…” Suddenly the tears came, the sobs, the gasping for breath. Sabrina’s head fell forward, her face in her hands.

“Oh, Sabrina.” Hilda set down the kettle and went to her. “It’s just a little amnesia, hey? Well, that’s not but the work of a moment, Sabrina, don’t fret.” Hilda petted her head. “Just let your auntie Hilda whip up one of her famous mnemosynous draughts, and Mr. Scratch will be right as rain.”

Sabrina looked up at her through tear-drenched lashes, hiccupping from the sobs. “Is that t-true, auntie? A p-potion can really bring back Nick’s memories, just like that?” She looked back and forth between Hilda and Zelda, her heart soaring.

Hilda’s eyes slid away from Sabrina’s. “Well, perhaps I was wrong to say it was the work of a _moment_…”

“More like the work of a week and a great deal of chopping and grinding and mixing of some – shall we say – treacherous ingredients.” Zelda took a long drag on her cigarette.

“But after all that, right as rain!” Hilda smiled widely and cupped Sabrina’s cheek in her hand.

Sabrina took a deep breath, attempting to bring herself back under control, to get her mind to stop racing. _Nick is alive he’s alive he’s gone but he’ll come back he will the boy who loved you is – _“So what goes into a pneumo…sinus… draught? Can I help?” she asked.

“A _mnemosynous _draught,” said Zelda, her voice still thick from the night’s martinis, “restores buried memories, unearths them from where they lie dormant in the mind. It works on a base of comfrey oil and goat’s blood, gathered during a new moon and left to coagulate in a granite sarcophagus buried under grave dirt for a full week.”

“One hundred and sixty-nine hours, technically,” Hilda amended obligingly. “Thirteen times thirteen, you see. For some extra oomph.”

Sabrina nodded. A week was nothing, and then Nick…

“We have a great store of comfrey oil, and there’s a new moon tomorrow, but it’s the active ingredients that pose the real trouble. That’s where you come in, Sabrina.”

“Of course,” she said eagerly. “Anything. What do I need to do?”

***

The attic room door closed behind Zelda. Ambrose and Prudence turned back to Nick. They all looked at each other in awkward silence for a moment before Ambrose let out a loud breath. “Well, Nicholas, I imagine this is will be a less dramatic revelation than you not remembering Sabrina, but I feel I must ask, just to see where we are… Does _my_ face ring any bells for you?”

Nick gave a little shrug and shook his head. “Ambrose Spellman, I assume?”

Ambrose smiled and went to sit by the bed. “One and the same. At least your powers of deduction remain intact.”

“To be fair, that was kind of a freebie,” he admitted. “Your aunt just said your name, and this is Spellman mortuary.”

“Take a little more pride in yourself, Nicholas. You’ve just woken up from a magical coma. You’re lucky you can remember your own name.”

Nick looked down at his hands. He knew what Ambrose Spellman was saying was true, but other than the fogginess in his head, he just couldn’t believe he had lost so much time.

“Allow me to set the scene for you, Nicholas,” Ambrose continued, rubbing his hands together. “You are at Spellman Sisters’ Mortuary. The Spellman sisters are Hilda and Zelda – or, if it helps, the nice one and the mean one, respectively. The pretty one with the sad eyes, courtesy of your memory loss, is Sabrina. Today’s date is the seventh – sorry, _eighth_, as it’s well after midnight – of November. If the last you remember is the beginning of classes, then you are missing slightly more than a full year’s time. Now if you wouldn’t mind, please recite the alphabet for me.”

Nick was taken aback. “Excuse me?”

Ambrose’s expression was serious. “The alphabet. An easy test, to start. Go on, let’s hear it.”

Nick glanced at Prudence, who smirked in amusement.

“Make sure to use the song, Nicky,” she teased.

He sighed. Feeling childish, he recited the alphabet. Without the song.

“And now backwards,” prompted Ambrose.

He did so, a little slowly but correctly. He was frustrated to discover that the effort of concentrating left him a little tired afterwards. Maybe he _had_ been unconscious for a while.

But Ambrose’s questioning was not done. “Who was the high priest of the Church of Night?”

“Father Blackwood.”

“First name?” Ambrose pressed.

After a second: “Faustus.”

“Very good. And finally – ” Ambrose leaned in close, his expression grave “ – who is the mean Spellman sister?”

Nick racked his brain. He knew Ambrose had just told him; he just had to push through the fog in his head. _Fuck, which one, which one?_ It was on the tip of his tongue. Then – “Zelda!” he said triumphantly. “Zelda’s the mean one.”

Ambrose clapped and sat back, laughing. “Very good, Nicholas. And some very important information, if you’re going to survive round here.”

Nick had to laugh a little, too. It felt good to have passed these tests. He may have lost his memory, but at least he hadn’t lost his mind. “Anything else?” he asked, almost wishing for more tests, more ways to prove to them, and to himself, that he was going to be okay.

Ambrose shook his head – and then Prudence abruptly stepped forward, her arms crossed. “What did Sabrina Spellman sing the first day you met her?” she demanded.

Ambrose looked up at her in surprise.

Nick’s mind was a blank. “I… I don’t remember first meeting Sabrina Spellman. You already know that, Prudence.” Why would she ask such a strange question when she already knew his answer?

Prudence regarded him searchingly for a moment more. He had the unpleasantly familiar sensation that she was trying to read his mind. “Very well,” she said finally, leaning back against the wall beside the door. “I’m satisfied.”

Ambrose looked at her in almost indulgent bemusement. “Well, Nicholas,” he said, slapping his hands on his knees as he stood, “these very rigorous tests have told me your cognitive abilities appear to be intact. The amnesia seems to be only retrograde, not anterograde; you’re forming new memories just fine. Right now, what should worry you most is that the only person here you seem to truly know is Prudence, Hell help you.” He went over to her, and Nick was surprised to see him kiss her strongly. “I’m going to convey this good news to Sabrina and the aunties. Shall we leave Nicholas to rest for a bit, Pru?”

Prudence’s eyes met Nick’s. Her look told him she wasn’t finished.

“Actually,” Nick said hesitantly, “I’d like Prudence to stay. Fill me in a bit more on what’s happened since… the last thing I can remember.” He knew he was asking for trouble, getting his information from Prudence. But at least she was a known entity. As nice as Ambrose and the rest of the Spellmans seemed – the mean one excluded – he had no idea what their agendas were. Prudence was his only option.

_Ambrose is right_, he thought. _Hell help me_.

***

“There are many ways to make a mnemosynous draught,” Hilda explained, “and they have vast ranges in strengths depending on the ingredients used, how they’re prepared, and who is preparing them. As your aunt Zelda said, the draughts are meant to restore repressed memories. Sometimes those memories are buried quite deep. Sometimes they’re only _just_ covered over with dirt, if you will. It’s important to calibrate the strength of the draught to the depth of the memories. Otherwise you could end up unearthing a whole mess.”

“People have gone mad, remembering too much.” Zelda took a long drag on her cigarette.

“Not helpful,” Hilda hissed at her. “We’re trying to reassure Sabrina, here, not give her a panic attack.”

“She ought to know the risks before she attempts to brew such a fickle potion,” Zelda said ruthlessly.

“It’s fine, Auntie Hilda,” Sabrina said, although she felt anything but. “Please, go on. You’re saying I have to figure out how deeply buried Nick’s memories are?”

Hilda nodded. “Precisely. You’ll have to talk with him, spend time with him, perhaps take him to places where those memories occurred and see if anything rings a bell. Then you’ll be able to craft the potion to the necessary strength.”

Sabrina sighed. She couldn’t help imagining just how that exercise would go. She was certainly not eager to revisit some of their memories together.

“So I’ll have to give him the grand tour of Sabrina and Nicholas’s failed relationship,” she said darkly. “‘Here’s where you lied to me about killing your familiar. Here’s where you got wasted and were a drunk asshole. Oh, and here’s where I found out you betrayed me to the Dark Lord.’ Sounds like a blast.”

Hilda and Zelda exchanged glances.

“Brewing a mnemosynous draught can be a painful process, Sabrina,” Hilda said gently. “If you think it’s not worth it – ”

“No, that’s not it, auntie. It’ll just be… hard.” Sabrina let out a breath. “Tell me more.”

Hilda opened her mouth to continue but stopped; they all heard Ambrose’s steps around the corner. He appeared in the doorway in a moment, looking tired.

“How does he seem, dear?” asked Hilda. “Please tell us it’s good news.”

Ambrose went to his normal seat at the table, sighing. “Good enough,” he said, drawing a leg up. “Seems to be no lasting cognitive damage. He can say the alphabet backwards and forwards. He’s able to form new memories just fine. But he truly doesn’t seem to know who we are. The only person he really knows is Prudence.”

“Poor soul,” muttered Zelda.

Ambrose smiled. “My thoughts exactly.”

“Once the rest of the coven is up, there’ll at least be some other Academy students he knows,” said Hilda.

“Right, Agatha and Dorcas?” Ambrose laughed. “He’ll long for when it was only Prudence.”

Sabrina spoke up. “Auntie Hilda was telling me about how to make a mnemosynous draught.” The word still sounded strange in her mouth.

Ambrose raised an eyebrow. “That’s quite an advanced brew, cousin,” he said. “Tricky, too. Thirteen this, thirteen that.”

Hilda nodded. “That’s what I was just getting to.” She turned back to Sabrina. “Once you’ve figured out the correct strength, you must calibrate the draught using the Principle of Thirteens.”

Sabrina wrinkled her nose. “What’s that?”

Hilda sighed. “They really didn’t teach you much about potion brewing at the Academy, did they?”

“Blackwood felt potion brewing was unimportant, a womanly magic,” sniffed Zelda. “Bigot.”

“Horrid man.” Hilda took a breath and explained: “Mnemosynous draughts operate on the Principle of Thirteens. The more components are completed in thirteens, the stronger the draught. Stir the brew thirteen times clockwise and thirteen times counterclockwise, grind this ingredient thirteen times with the mortar and pestle, and so on.”

“Well, that doesn’t seem so tricky,” said Sabrina optimistically. “At least it’s all the same number. Thirteen, thirteen, thirteen.”

“Sure, cousin, the thirteens aren’t so tricky to _remember_,” said Ambrose. “Actually _doing _it is a bit more precise. But the really tricky bit is the additional ingredients.”

“Ambrose is right. The ingredients are the truly difficult part of any mnemosynous draught,” said Hilda. “They’re different for every draught, because they have to be specific to the person the potion is designed for. Each ingredient represents, and is designed to evoke, one of the buried memories.”

Sabrina frowned, thinking. “Do you have an example?”

“Well… Hm…” Hilda mused for a moment. “Let’s say I lost my memory of today. You, Sabrina, are brewing the potion for me. You would try to think of something that represented a memory we built together today. We spent some time weeding the garden this afternoon, so perhaps you’d include one of the dandelions we pulled in the potion. That dandelion would represent that memory of us spending that time together in the garden.”

Zelda snorted. “That’s a bit simplistic, sister,” she said disdainfully.

“That’s why it’s only an _example_…” Hilda muttered through clenched teeth.

“So I have to come up with items that symbolize my memories with Nick…” Sabrina said, thoughtfully. “But so much happened so long ago, it’s hard for even me to remember. And there are lots of memories that don’t have any items associated with them. What am I supposed to do for those?”

“That’s what makes the ingredients so difficult,” said Zelda. “Mnemosynous draughts use interpretive magic that works on the symbols of those ingredients. As the brewer, you must judge the strength of that symbolism. It requires an almost artistic flair. They’re not like most potions, where you’re simply following step-by-step instructions without any critical thinking required.”

“Now who’s being simplistic?” Hilda grumbled.

“The strength also comes from the relationship between the brewer and the drinker,” Zelda continued. “Fortunately, the draught will have a great deal of strength provided simply by the sexual nature of your relationship.”

The kitchen fell quiet. Sabrina felt all eyes on her. She stared down at her tea.

“Sabrina.” Zelda’s voice was sharp. “You and Mr. Scratch _did_ consummate your relationship, did you not?”

Sabrina did not respond.

_“Sabrina.”_

“Now, Zelds, that’s quite a personal question – ”

“I cannot imagine any niece of mine dating a smart, ambitious warlock like Nicholas Scratch and _not_ engaging in recreational, pleasurable – ”

“ – it’s Sabrina’s choice what she does, if she thinks she’s not ready – ”

“ – absolutely _unnatural_ – ”

Sabrina felt a hand on her shoulder and turned. It was Ambrose, giving her a kind, tired smile. “Now might be the time to slip away, coz,” he whispered. He nodded toward the tea tray. “Perhaps take a cup up to Nicholas, say good night, and then get some sleep. I know I’m knackered, myself. The draught can wait until morning.”

Seeing his weary expression, she suddenly felt very tired herself. She nodded and thanked him before taking the tea tray. Hilda and Zelda were still arguing as she slipped out of the kitchen and headed up the stairs.

***

“What do you want to know?” Prudence asked, as Ambrose closed the door behind him.

Now that it was just the two of them, Nick took her in for the first time since he’d woken up. She looked different. She had changed her hair since he last remembered seeing it, and he thought she looked… softer, somehow. But perhaps it was only a trick of the dim lamplight in the room; a moment later, she looked as hard as ever.

“I don’t even know where to start,” he admitted. “I guess I want to know everything that’s happened in the past year.”

“The past year?” She smirked. “Strap yourself in, Nicky. You’re in for a wild ride.”

He supposed he ought to start with one of the questions that had plagued him since Sabrina Spellman had placed her warm, soft hand over his, had looked at him so sweetly. There were two questions, but right now, one was much easier to ask than the other. “That girl… Sabrina…” he said slowly. “She said you got me ‘out’. Out from where?”

“Hell,” Prudence said simply. She smirked when he gave a start. It was clear she was enjoying this.

“Why was I in Hell? And how did you get me out?”

“Oh, I wasn’t part of that little field trip,” she said airily. “That was Sabrina and her three mortal friends. _I _was on the other side of the world, hunting down Father Blackwood.” Her smirk only grew at his bewilderment.

He let out a long breath. His mind was swimming with questions, but he didn’t know where to start, or even if they were the right ones to ask. It was almost too much to take.

Prudence pulled a chair away from Ambrose’s desk and drew it near the bed. She sat down and crossed her long legs. “As for why you were in Hell,” she continued, “that’s a long story, Nicky. I’m not sure you’re ready to hear it, in your state.”

Normally he would have protested, but he had to admit she was had a point. His brain felt foggy, like he had drunk too much bourbon. Maybe he should just let her tell him the basics – taking whatever Prudence told him with a heaping helping of salt, of course – and he could fill in the rest later.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “Then what do you think I _am _ready to hear?”

She appraised him haughtily him for a moment. He had seen this look on Prudence many times; it was one of her most off-putting. But in that moment, its familiarity felt strangely comforting. _At least some things haven’t changed_, he thought wryly.

Finally, she seemed to come to a conclusion. She crossed her arms, a wicked smile on her lips. “Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? A very good place to start,” she said. “Stop me if anything jogs your memory. No use wasting my breath if you’ve heard it before.”

He nodded. He hoped he would have the opportunity to do so, but in truth, his mind felt like it was full of cotton balls when it came to the past year. Fuzzy. Insubstantial. Blank.

Prudence began. “Last November, Sabrina Spellman started at the Academy.”

He frowned. “What does that have to do with me ending up in Hell?”

“Patience, Nicky. Much as I hate to admit it, almost everything that happened to you, and to me, and to everyone in the Church of Night over the past year, good and bad, was because of that half-witch. Now listen.”

He did. Even maintaining skepticism as he always did with Prudence, the stories she told him defied belief. Prudence told him that Sabrina had arrived at the Academy a year ago, that the Dark Lord seemed inexplicably to favor her right away, that Nick himself had been infatuated with her. According to Prudence, at first, Sabrina had only led him on, allowing him to participate in her dark rituals and using his interest in her to further her own agenda of disrupting the church’s traditions with her mortal sensibilities, which she had done at every turn.

She had refused to sign her name in the Book of the Beast.

She had prevented Prudence from ascending to the full honor of being sacrificed as Queen of the Feast by forcing Faustus Blackwood to reveal he was Prudence’s father.

She had called on Nick and Prudence to help her murder Agatha to bring back her mortal boyfriend’s dead brother.

She had somehow summoned the Greendale Thirteen and the Red Angel of Death to kill all the firstborn children in Greendale, mortal and witch alike.

She had instructed Nick to protect her mortal boyfriend at the risk of his own life.

She had manipulated the Matching ceremony during Lupercalia to ensure that she and Nick were paired but had not followed through on the festival’s lustful purpose, against nature and custom.

She had manifested bizarre and terrifying powers in the desecrated church, destroying two witch-hunters and resurrecting Melvin and Elsbeth.

She had attempted to advance her father’s blasphemous manifesto of intermingling witches and mortals.

She had fulfilled a prophecy that paved the way for the Dark Lord to walk the earth and usher in the Apocalypse.

And finally, she had orchestrated a confrontation with the Dark Lord himself that ended in Nick having to bind Lucifer within his own body.

By the time Prudence had finished, Nick was dumbfounded. He didn’t know what to believe. He sat in silence, attempting to make sense of everything she had said about Sabrina Spellman. If even a fraction of it was true…

“What’s the matter, Nicky? Cat got your tongue?” He thought she looked like the cat who caught the canary, herself.

He shook his head in disbelief. “I’ve always known you liked toying with people’s perceptions of reality, Prudence,” he finally said, “but this is beyond the pale, even for you.” 

“You think I’m lying to you?”

“If history has taught me anything, it’s that the only thing you relish more than torturing mortal boys is making others question their sanity.”

She let out a short laugh. “Believe what you want. It makes no difference to me,” she said airily. “But I told you what I know, what everything in the past year has taught me: Sabrina Spellman is dangerous to witch kind, as dangerous as I knew she would be even before she joined the Academy.”

“Then why are you here?” he asked. “Why work with her? Live with her, in her home?”

She gave him yet another patronizing look. “Well, that should be obvious. What’s that mortal saying? ‘If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em’?”

The look on her face was guarded, but somehow Nick grasped what she was refusing to admit. “You like her.”

She kept her expression neutral. “Why shouldn’t I align myself with the only person to defeat the Dark Lord twice? You know I strive to live up to my name, Nicky, and going against Sabrina would certainly not be prudent.”

He laughed. She was as spiky as ever. “Whatever you have to tell yourself, Pru.”

She only smiled at him. “Any other questions? It’s really getting late now, and I am horribly jetlagged.”

He almost let her go, but one question did linger. It was the other one that had come to mind when his hands were in Sabrina’s, when her brown eyes looked at him so kindly it made his heart ache.

“Just one,” he said. “What was my relationship with Sabrina Spellman?”

Nick immediately regretted asking. The smirk that spread slowly across Prudence’s face was more smug than any she had given him that night. “Why, Nicky, I thought you would never ask,” she said, leaning close. “I can answer you that straight from the horse’s mouth – the horse being you, just before you sacrificed yourself to save the world and her. Sabrina Spellman, in your words, taught you how to love.”

Suddenly he felt light-headed. Before he knew it, he had fallen back onto the pillows. The room was spinning. When he opened his bleary eyes, a blurry Prudence was sitting on the bed beside him. Her face filled his vision.

“Like I said, Nicky: a wild ride.”

***

As Sabrina climbed the steps to the attic, she thought about what her aunt Zelda had asked her about her relationship with Nicholas.

It wasn’t that they had never done anything. They had even come close to “consummating” a couple times. She had thought about the sex with Nick often. She knew she wanted him. How could she not? He was handsome, smart, devoted to her and her mission, an amazing kisser – plus he somehow always managed to not pressure her into having sex… in a sexy way. It was reassuring and arousing at the same time.

But she had also always imagined her first time to be with – well, specifically Harvey, but once that went out the window, she had realized that what she really wanted was for it to be with someone she loved. Really loved. And she had never fully accepted that what she felt for Nick was love.

Lust, though? She was fully comfortable acknowledging she felt _that_ for Nick. Still did. One memory in particular came to mind, one that she had often thought back to when she was alone in her bed, restless and missing him.

After the encounter with the witch-hunting angels, after her new powers had been revealed, Nick had come to the mortuary to talk to her. She had been in her bathrobe, hair still wet from the bath. He had sat on the edge of the bed with her and apologized for not being in the church to catch her. She could see the vulnerability in his eyes. He was still insecure about her relationship with Harvey, and she knew it. She had reassured him, asked him to stay by her side, despite her new, bizarre powers.

“What are warlock boyfriends for?” he’d said, and kissed her.

She knew as she returned his kiss that his choice of words was deliberate, an attempt to draw an even starker distinction between himself and Harvey. But she couldn’t help but think, falling to the bed with him, that he was right. He, her warlock boyfriend, had proven what he was for. He was for supporting her, lifting her up, believing in her. He was for loving her and her power and not running away.

He was also for kissing her neck and running his hands down her side, brushing his fingers past her breasts. He was for murmuring softly in her ear and sending shivers down her spine. He was for making her realize that she was still naked under her robe and not at all upset about it.

She curled a hand around the back of his neck and pulled him closer. She wasn’t sure if it was the exhilaration of her new powers or the warmth of Nick’s hands and body, but she felt brave this night. She wanted something to happen. She wanted to _make_ something happen.

She hooked a leg over his, pulling his hips flush with hers. As she did so, the robe fell away to reveal a bare thigh. Nick’s hand slid down, his fingers running up and down her leg. She hadn’t shaved her legs in a while, but he didn’t seem to mind.

She broke her mouth away from his to plant kisses down his throat, a place where she knew he was sensitive. As she sucked lightly at the junction of his neck and shoulder, he let out a low moan. His hand snaked back up her side and landed on her ribs, his thumb rubbing the side of her breast, teasing closer to her nipple, almost asking for permission.

She appreciated his deference, but tonight was different somehow. She felt bold and wanted to show him, wanted to see how he would react. She put her hand on his and guided it over her breast. She got the reaction she wanted. Nick growled her name and rolled her onto her back, his mouth on hers as he palmed her breast, rubbing her hardening nipple through the soft fabric.

He had touched her breasts before, but that had been somewhat shyly, knowing that it was as far as she wanted to go. They had usually pulled apart soon afterwards, hair mussed and eyes glassy. Now she wanted to keep going, beyond where they’d been before. But Nick had never pressed her, _would_ never press her. She knew she would have to tell him what she wanted.

“That feels so good, Nick,” she whispered against his mouth. “You make me feel so good.”

“That’s all I want to do, Sabrina,” he murmured between kisses.

She hesitated for a moment. But she was sure she wanted more. “Then – do it,” she said. “Make me feel good. Tonight.”

He pulled back slightly and looked at her. His eyes were serious, attempting to read hers. She didn’t look away but squeezed his arm. Finally, he smiled at her and bent his head back to hers. His kiss was warm and gentle and longing, not what she was expecting. It made her heart ache.

His hand moved on her breast again, this time slowly, more patient. Now that he knew what she wanted, he was taking his time. He wanted to do things right.

Her fingers went to the buttons of his dark shirt and began undoing them. Her cool hands splayed across his chest, fingertips ghosting on his skin, drawing goosebumps from him.

He followed her lead and slid a hand between the folds of her robe. His bare hand settled back over her breast, and she let out a small _mmm_ at the sensation of his fingertip circling her nipple.

This was as far as they had ever gotten. Anything more would be new.

She longed for it.

She kissed him hotly, trying to convey her desire without words. He responded just as strongly. Then his mouth left hers, kissing slowly, almost reverently, down her neck and shoulder. Once she realized where he was going, her heart began to pound in anticipation. She whimpered. His hand dropped down to the belt of her robe and tugged it open, so the robe fell to either side of her. He paused for a moment, his hot breath fanning over her breasts. He glanced up at her, and in his dark eyes she could see the effort it took him not to simply devour her. Electricity shot through her at that look.

She nodded quickly at his unspoken question.

His mouth on her breast was searing. She felt like she was on fire, and she couldn’t stop herself moaning. Her hand went to his hair, pulling at his curls, and she could tell that right then he couldn’t have cared less about how his hair looked.

After a moment, she realized his hand was slowly sliding lower on her stomach, closer to the source of the heat coursing through her body. Suddenly she could think of little more than how it would feel to have him touch her _there_, how sweet and warm like syrup, like whiskey through her veins.

His hand stalled before it reached its destination. She had known that it would and loved that it did, that he cared so much about her comfort that he wanted to stop at every new boundary before breaking it – but tonight she wanted them broken.

“Is this okay?” His voice was husky, almost strained. His dark eyes searched hers. She could tell how much he wanted to touch her, that it would be almost painful for him not to, but that he would still stop everything if she said no.

Instead, she nodded and pulled his face back to hers. Just before she closed her eyes, she saw a look of relief and desire cross his face. His kiss was searing, almost joyful.

His hand slid across her skin, along the sensitive crease of her thigh. Her breath hitched as his warm hand covered her. He froze at her gasp, started to pull away, but she snaked her fingers into his hair and crushed his lips to hers. _No, don’t stop, don’t stop_, she thought desperately, almost believing he would hear her. _I need you, too._

Then – slowly – his finger sank into her. She let out a moan at the sensation, and was surprised to hear a noise escape him, too, from deep in his throat, at discovering how wet she was.

“Fuck, Spellman,” he breathed. “You’re incredible.”

Her brain was too warm, too hazy, to respond. Instead, she gripped one hand around his forearm. “Please,” she said hoarsely, not fully knowing what she was pleading for.

He knew. He captured her lips with his again just before he began to slowly pump his finger in and out. The friction was delicious. It drove heat all through her body, making her hum. Just as she was growing accustomed to the feeling of Nick’s finger inside her, getting a handle on the sensations, he slowly slipped in another finger, and her heart leapt again. Her breath turned ragged. She was kissing him only sloppily now, unable to make her mouth line up with his but craving the contact.

He shifted on the bed, pulling his lips from hers. She whimpered at the loss, tried to lift her face to his again, but then she felt his thumb on her clit and fell back to the bed with a moan. He bent his head over her, nibbling at her neck, her throat, murmuring her name in her ear.

She was suddenly desperate to touch him, too. The hand grasping his forearm slid up his arm to his broad shoulder, then back down his chest, his stomach, to his belt. She tried to fumble at it but knew she would never be able to undo it, not now, with her brain on fire like it was. She let out a frustrated groan and felt Nick smile against her neck.

“It’s all right,” he whispered, planting kisses along her collar bone. “I want it to just be about you.”

“But – ” she protested. She didn’t know how to put it into words, but his thumb pressing on her clit, his fingers curling deep inside her, everything he was doing to her, made her want to do things to him, too. She at least had to know what he felt like right now. Her hand left his belt buckle and slid down to touch him.

He groaned as she pressed her hand over him. He was so hard, so hot, even through his jeans. Knowing that it was for her, because of her – it set her whole body on fire. She suddenly felt so close, and it was so different from doing it herself in the bath or late at night before bed. It was better, stronger, almost scary to feel so much all at once and to be feeling it with someone else. With Nick.

“Nick – I think I’m – ” she choked out.

“Yes, Sabrina,” he breathed, and covered her mouth with his. His fingers continued doing just what they were doing, which was exactly what she needed.

She came undone in his arms. It was more than anything she had ever felt before. She was grateful for his mouth on hers, as he swallowed every gasp, every cry of ecstasy. He kissed her greedily, almost possessively. She had never felt more his.

His hand slowly stilled on her, letting her come down gently, before he withdrew his fingers and wrapped his arms around her. She remained shuddering in his arms, speechless, for several long minutes. He was warm and gentle, smoothing a hand up and down her back and whispering how much he loved her.

She had been nearly delirious with contentment, with him, as she drifted off to sleep.

Even now, as Sabrina climbed the steps to the attic room, her body was buzzing a little just thinking about that night. Looking back, knowing what she knew now, she almost wished she had tried harder to do something for him, too. But he had made her feel so beautiful, so powerful, so loved – she couldn’t in all honestly bring herself to wish it had gone any differently.

The night had been perfect, but it meant that the mnemosynous draught would need to get its strength from somewhere else.

As she approached the door to the attic room, she was surprised to see it open in front of her. Prudence stepped out, closed the door, and gave a little start herself when she saw Sabrina standing there. Her face looked just as tired as Ambrose’s had been.

“How is he?” Sabrina asked.

“Tired. Overwhelmed. A lot happened in the last year.”

“Understatement of the century.”

They looked at each other in dry amusement. A rare comfortable moment between them.

“I’m going to bed,” Prudence said, breaking the silence. She pushed past Sabrina. “He’s in worse shape than he thinks he is, Sabrina. You may need to go easy on him. I didn’t.”

“Good night, Prudence,” Sabrina said, rolling her eyes. Of course Prudence had been rough with Nick – she knew no other way to be. Now Sabrina would have to survey the damage.

She reached for the doorknob and turned it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked! This was my first time writing a scene like Sabrina's flashback, so please let me know what you thought! Sexy/not sexy? Could you imagine it happening? 
> 
> I hope the first scene and the flashback make up for the lack of Nick-and-Sabrina one-on-one scenes so far, but the next chapter will definitely start with one! Stay tuned!


	4. Illusion Has Been Just a Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a little shorter than the first three - "only" 5,000 words instead of like 6,000-7,000! Sorry, y'all, deciding I wanted it to be only 13 chapters means the chapters themselves end up being kind of long. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Also [insert meme], was anyone going to tell me the song Sabrina sings was by Charles Manson or was I supposed to read that on LyricFind myself?

When she entered the room, she was surprised to see Nick climbing out of bed. He was leaning over it, with his feet on the floor and his hands still on the bed, attempting to use his arms to push himself up.

“Need any help?” she asked, setting down the tea tray on Ambrose’s desk.

He jerked up, his head whipping toward her. “Oh, Sabrina, I was – ”

She saw his eyes roll up in his head. He teetered on his feet. Without thinking, she darted forward and threw an arm around his waist, slowing his fall back down to the bed. He landed with a grunt.

“I guess no standing yet, huh?” she said, laughing a little.

He looked at her, dazed. “I guess not.” His face was only inches from hers.

She quickly extricated her arm and stood, going back to the desk. “I brought some tea,” she said. “I’ll bring it to you. You just stay in bed.”

“Thanks,” he said. He took the cup she offered him. “I guess being unconscious for a week means my body’s not used to strenuous activity, like standing up.”

“Muscle atrophy,” she said, nodding. “Once we brought you back, whatever Hell-magic was keeping your body from deteriorating wore off. It was almost like you were in a normal coma.”

“A normal coma, huh?” he mused. “So, if my body was no longer in stasis, that means it was… for lack of a better term, performing normal bodily functions, while I was out?”

She gave him a rueful smile and nodded.

“Well, _that’s _embarrassing,” he sighed. “And… bathing? If I’ve been unable to take a shower for a full week, I think I should smell a lot worse than I do.”

“That was me and Aunt Hilda,” Sabrina said. At his look of surprise, she blushed. “I mean, Hilda bathed you. I just washed your hair.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized it didn’t sound much better.

Nick put a hand through his hair immediately. It made it stand on end. She suppressed a smile.

“So, what did Prudence tell you?” she asked, eager to change the subject. She took a seat in the chair Prudence had left. She didn’t feel comfortable going to sit on the side of the bed. It felt weird, but she didn’t know _this_ Nick. It was almost as though they were meeting for the first time.

“A lot of nonsense.” He smiled wryly, taking a sip of his tea. “You know Prudence.”

“That does sound like her,” she agreed. “But then again, a lot of nonsense happened in the past year. Why don’t you tell me what she told you?”

His expression turned awkward at the suggestion. “Well, I would,” he said carefully, setting down his tea in his lap, “but a lot of it was about you, Sabrina Spellman.”

“And I’m guessing not all of it good?” she said. At his expression, she revised: “Oh. _None_ of it good.”

He chuckled. “Her admiration for you certainly shone through. Of course, Pru’s objects of admiration are often… questionable.”

“Prudence doesn’t admire me.”

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“She doesn’t! We don’t even get along.”

“The only people Prudence _does_ get along with are Agatha and Dorcas – and your cousin Ambrose, I noticed,” said Nick. “But Prudence _admires_ power, ambition, physical beauty – and based on what she told me and the evidence of my own eyes, you have all of those in spades, Spellman.” He smiled cautiously at her.

Her heart beat faster. _He doesn’t remember you. He’s just the same Nick from before you met, which means he flirts. A lot. Get it together, Sabrina_.

She broke eye contact to take up her own cup of tea. It was cool and nearly empty, but she pretended to take a long sip. “I don’t mind hearing what she said about me,” she told him nonchalantly. “Was there anything in particular you had questions about?”

“Since I guess ‘all of it’ isn’t a very useful answer,” he said with a dry smile, “I’ll start with the part Prudence didn’t know much about. How did you get me out of Hell?”

“It wasn’t just me,” she said humbly. “My mortal friends – Harvey, Roz, and Theo – they helped. I couldn’t have done it without them.”

“Were these mortals my friends, too?”

“No, I know them from school. You weren’t particularly close with them. Actually, with Harvey, you were even kind of antagonistic.”

“So, three mortals followed you into Hell to save a warlock they barely knew?” He looked impressed. “You must really be something, Spellman.”

It made her heart flutter to hear him call her that. His voice held the same wry tone it often had – before. It was hard to believe he remembered nothing of her.

She pushed those thoughts away and focused on telling him how they had gotten him out of Hell. She told him about Lilith leading them down to the Dark Lord’s cell, about the ritual they had performed, and about getting him out again. She left out how the Dark Lord had used Nick’s face and voice to taunt her, to make her doubt herself.

_The boy who loved you is gone forever._

She hoped that by leaving out those words in telling the story to Nick, she could make them feel less true.

Once she was done telling him about it all, he let out a low whistle. “That’s quite an expedition, Spellman. And combining the soul knot ritual with the creation of clay vessels? Inspired.” Awe was evident in his eyes as he looked her up and down. “You did all that just to rescue me?”

She shrugged one shoulder, looking away. “You would have done the same for me… before...”

They both fell quiet.

“…Was it worth it?” His voice was hoarse.

She looked up. His brows were furrowed, his eyes raw and red. Her heart broke. She opened her mouth, but no words came out.

He looked down. “Sorry,” he said quickly, pressing a hand to his eyes. “I’m so tired, I’m asking stupid questions. What I want to say is – ” he took a deep breath, seemed to collect himself, and looked back up at her. “ – thank you, Sabrina. For saving me. I know I’m not… what you were hoping for… but I hope I can still be of use to you.”

Suddenly, she felt like screaming. _I didn’t bring you back from Hell so you could be “of use” to me, Nicholas, _she wanted to say. _I brought you back because… I don’t know, because I need you and I want you and I hate you for betraying me and I need to know when and for how long and how much you lied to my face and how you felt doing it and I hope it killed you. I want you to beg me for forgiveness and I want to give it to you. _

But she didn’t say any of that. Instead, she pushed down her racing thoughts and said: “My aunt Hilda thinks that brewing a mnemosynous draught might bring back your memories.”

Nick frowned. “I’ve heard of those, but potion brewing was never my forte,” he said. “Aren’t they supposed to be really difficult to make?”

“Yes,” she said, “but we have to try.”

He smiled at her. “I think I’m seeing that Spellman ambition Prudence seems to admire. What do you need from me?”

It was a question he had asked her so many times before. It made her stomach clench to hear it again now.

“Nothing too difficult, I hope. I have to figure out just how deeply buried your memories are in order to calibrate the draught’s strength. So, we have to see what you _do _remember, if anything. And to do that, we have to go places and do things that might jog your memory.”

“Okay, that makes sense,” he said, nodding thoughtfully. “So… what kinds of things did you and I do?”

Her mind flashed back to that night in her room, his mouth on her breast, his fingers bringing her to climax… She shoved the thought back down, her face flushing. “W-well, I’ll have to think about it,” she stuttered.

His expression seemed to suggest he knew what she had been thinking, but he held his tongue, for once. She was grateful.

“Anyway, it’s pretty late,” she said, standing. “And you said you’re tired from – ”

“Being unconscious?” He smiled wryly.

“ – everything,” she finished lamely. She stood there for a moment more, feeling awkward. “Um, the bathroom is down the hall to the right. You’re welcome to use anything in there, or to eat any of the food in the fridge.” She turned to go.

“Thanks, Sabrina.”

Him saying her name made her pause. She turned back to him. He looked strangely small in Ambrose’s bed. Confused. Lost. “I really am glad you’re awake, Nicholas,” she told him earnestly. “We’re going to get your memories back. I promise.”

He smiled at her. “I hope so,” he said, just as earnestly. “_That_ Nick must have been pretty great to be with someone like you, Sabrina Spellman.”

She couldn’t speak; her heart was suddenly in her throat. She swallowed it down and left.

That night, she dreamt that she brought Nick into her bedroom to help him regain his memories. She kissed him, took his hand and placed it over her hot, wet core, and as he brought her to ecstasy again, he told her he remembered everything, that seeing her like this was something he could never forget. She woke up still panting from her release.

After splashing some cold water on her face, she went downstairs. It was early yet – she hadn’t slept for long – but Hilda was up and puttering about in the kitchen. When Sabrina entered, she realized that Hilda looked even worse than she did. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her hair was a mess.

“Good morning, Auntie Hilda,” Sabrina said, concern in her voice. “Are you all right?”

Hilda looked startled to see her. “Sabrina, love, it’s barely half six. What are you doing up?”

“I could ask the same of you.” She took a seat at the table. “Did you sleep at all?”

Hilda waved a hand at her dismissively. “Sleep? When so much needs to be done for this draught? I couldn’t have if I tried.” She attempted a smile, but it came out as more of a grimace.

Sabrina gave her an uncertain smile back.

“Well, darling, now that you’re up, I wanted to talk to you about something.” Hilda took a breath, seeming to prepare herself. “What your aunt Zelda was asking last night – ”

Sabrina shook her head, attempting to cut off Hilda’s train of thought. “Oh, no, Auntie Hilda. You don’t need to worry about that. I’m fine. I know Zelda’s kind of an old-fashioned witch…”

“That’s not what I meant,” Hilda said, taking Sabrina’s hands as she sat down next to her. “I wanted to make sure you knew that Zelda was wrong. It’s a common misconception that mnemosynous draughts become stronger if the brewer and the drinker engaged in… mutual… _you-know-what_… but that’s not _really_ where the potion’s power comes from. The power comes from the strength of the relationship.” Hilda rubbed the back of Sabrina’s hand with her thumb. “Often, a strong relationship involves… _that_… but not always. Mnemosynous draughts are brewed for children, for parents, for siblings, for friends… What matters is the depth of the relationship, not its nature.” She gave what was meant to be a reassuring smile.

Sabrina chewed the inside of her cheek. “Thanks, Auntie Hilda,” she said. “But to be honest, I don’t know if that makes me feel any better. My relationship with Nicholas is… complicated. I barely know how I feel about him.” She sighed. “Not a great position to be in for brewing this potion.”

Hilda pursed her lips sympathetically. “There, there. It’ll turn out all right,” she said, patting Sabrina’s hand. “At any rate, Mr. Scratch seems to be in good shape, all things considering.”

“You’ve seen him this morning?”

“He came down looking for some food. A little wobbly on his feet but absolutely ravenous. I told him it made sense; he’d been surviving on broth boiled from the same old bones for the past week.” Hilda giggled. Sabrina smiled; she knew Hilda loved little more than having hungry mouths to feed.

“He does seem like himself,” Sabrina admitted. “Everything about him is the same, except for his memories of the past year. Memories of us, of me… of betraying me.”

Hilda was quiet for a moment. “Perhaps some things are better off forgotten,” she said softly.

Sabrina shook her head. “No, I want him to remember,” she said. “I have to know… when.”

“I understand, love. You need to talk to him about it in order to close that chapter of your life.” Hilda’s gaze was warm. “But the Dark Lord is no longer ruling in Hell. There will be no more devotions, no more midnight demands. The Nicholas Scratch upstairs in Ambrose’s room… _he_ isn’t the one who betrayed you. For now, it may be easier if you try to forget it, as well. Try to live in this brave new world you helped create. At least until he’s regained his memories and can answer for his actions.”

Sabrina thought about what Hilda said for the rest of that day. She honestly didn’t know if she _could_ forget Nick’s betrayal, even for just the week it would take to make the potion – especially if she was going to have to take Nick to places they had been together. But she did know that she shouldn’t take out her frustration on this version of Nick. He was even more confused about who they were to each other than she was.

She woke up without realizing she had fallen asleep. It was already dark, and she could hear voices downstairs. She glanced at the clock and saw it was dinnertime. She wasn’t in the mood to talk to the whole coven, but she was starving. She decided to sneak downstairs and try to steal something from the kitchen.

When she got there, however, she realized she wasn’t the only person who’d had that thought. Nick was leaning against the kitchen counter, surreptitiously eating a sandwich. He looked at her sheepishly as she came in, as though he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Not ready to face everyone?” she asked in a whisper, not wanting to alert everyone in the dining room to her presence.

“I could ask the same of you,” he replied just as quietly. “Shall I make you a secret sandwich, as well?” He gestured to the sandwich fixings spread out on the counter.

She smiled and nodded. “If you would be so kind.” She took a seat at the table.

They stayed in silence for a few minutes as Nick put together a sandwich for her. It was strangely comfortable, she thought.

“So, I’ve been thinking about this potion,” he said, finally breaking the silence. He slid the sandwich across the table to her, and she took it gratefully.

She took a bite. It was just what she needed. “Mm-hmm?”

“Mm-hmm,” he echoed, smiling at her. “About attempting to jog my memory by going places we’ve been before. I’d like to get started right away.”

She swallowed and nodded. “Me, too,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about where to take you, and I have a few ideas.”

He was listening intently.

“The Academy, where we first met. The desecrated church, Dorian’s Gray Room, Baxter High, maybe the woods…” _My bedroom_…

“Dorian’s?” he asked. “Is it not a warlocks-only club anymore?”

“It is. You still took me there.”

“Nice one, Old Nick,” he said appreciatively. “Well, it’s a stupid policy anyway. Who cares?”

She smiled. “Yep, that’s what you said.”

“Well, it sounds like you have a pretty good idea where we should go,” he said. “Can we start tomorrow?”

“I have school tomorrow.”

He gave her a puzzled look. “I thought the Academy was closed while renovations were made.”

“It is. I have mortal school, at Baxter High. And I was absent for most of last week since I… wasn’t feeling well.” He didn’t need to know she had skipped school to be there in case he woke up. “So I really do have to go tomorrow.”

“Mortal school,” he repeated, almost to himself. He took a last, thoughtful bite of his sandwich. “Well, when is it over? Can we go afterwards?”

She shrugged. “Sure, I can meet you here after I get out, and we can go to the Academy and see what you remember.”

“Works for me,” he said. He brushed the crumbs off his hands, picked up his plate, and washed it in the sink. When he was done, he turned to her. “I’m heading upstairs. Sleep tight, Spellman.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“It’s a date.” He winked at her and left.

Sabrina sat in the kitchen long after she had finished her sandwich. Having Nick flirt with her was strange. She wasn’t sure if he meant anything by it or if it was just his default way of talking to people he found attractive. Either way, it was a little hard to bear.

Finally, she shook herself out of her reverie. It was getting late, and she might as well get to bed now if she wanted to get any sleep. The legs of her chair scraped on the floor as she pushed it back from the table.

Suddenly, Zelda poked her head in the kitchen. “Sabrina,” she called. “There you are. It’s time to collect the goat’s blood for the mnemosynous draught. Come along, you’ve got to wield the ritual blade.” She disappeared around the corner.

Sabrina sighed and trudged off after Zelda. “So much for getting some sleep.”

***

That day at school passed second by painfully slow second. Sabrina dozed off in several of her classes. Theo nudged her awake with his elbow a couple times and told her she had been snoring. She took the lunch hour to nap on the couch in the library and still felt no better when the bell went off for fifth period.

After what felt like a year, the final bell rang. As Sabrina made her way, zombie-like, through the halls, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned and was surprised to see saw Roz, out of breath and looking concerned.

“’Brina, what is up with you?” she asked. “I’ve been trying to get your attention for like five minutes.”

“I’m sorry, Roz. I’m so out of it today. I’ve barely slept since Friday.”

Roz raised an eyebrow. “Why? Did something happen?”

“Oh, I haven’t told you,” Sabrina said, realizing just how much had happened in the past twenty-four hours. “Nick is awake.”

A smile broke across Roz’s face. “Oh my gosh! That’s – ” She stopped midsentence, seeing Sabrina’s expression. “That’s not all there is to the story, is there?” she asked soberly.

Sabrina shook her head. “He lost his memory, Roz. He can’t remember anything from the past year.”

“Oh, no… ’Brina, I’m so sorry. That’s awful.” Roz put her arms around Sabrina. Her hug was warm, and Sabrina gladly returned it. “Is there anything _witchy_ you can do to bring his memories back?”

“My aunt Hilda and I are brewing a potion, but it’s tricky. I have to figure out just how deeply buried his memories are first. I’m supposed to meet him pretty soon so we can start going places that might jog his memory.”

“So you have to go back to where you guys used to spend time together? Even the places where bad stuff happened? And he doesn’t remember any of it?” Roz’s jaw dropped. “Sabrina, that _sucks_.”

Sabrina laughed darkly. “I know, right? And that’s not even the hardest part of the potion. I also have to come up with ingredients to put in it that symbolize those memories. And I’m the _worst_ at symbolism. I got a D on that _Animal Farm _essay.”

Roz grinned. “Well, if all else fails, maybe you could try kissing him. That always works in the movies.”

Sabrina raised an eyebrow at her. “Right. I’ll just plant a smooch on a guy who has barely any idea who I am.”

“From what you told me about how he was when you guys first met, I doubt he’d mind.”

“Fair point,” she admitted. “And he’s already been flirting with me.”

“Ohh?”

“It’s not as fun as it sounds.” Sabrina sighed. “To be honest, even if Nicholas _had_ come back with all his memories intact, I don’t know if I would want to kiss him or kill him.”

Roz looked at her sympathetically. “That sounds really hard, ’Brina. If you need any help – or just want to get away and not think about it at all – just let me know.”

“Thanks, Roz.” She smiled at her. “Unfortunately, I think I’m on my own for now.”

When Sabrina made it back to the mortuary, Nick was sitting on the steps, reading. He was wearing clothes that clearly belonged to Ambrose: some light-wash skinny jeans Sabrina hadn’t seen in years and a purple shirt that said ALOHA FROM HELL. She had to suppress a smile at seeing Nick in such different clothes from his normal wardrobe.

As he saw her walk up the drive, he set down the book, a finger marking his place. “Welcome home, Spellman,” he called, grinning. “What did you learn at school today?”

“That staying up late to sacrifice a goat is not a good enough excuse for why I didn’t do my homework,” she answered, earning a chuckle from him. She glanced at the title of the book. “_Magickall Maladyes_?”

“From Ambrose’s library. I figured I might as well see what it said about memory loss.” At her bemused expression, he said, “I wasn’t going to just sit and twiddle my thumbs while you were at mortal school. I’m trying to make myself useful.”

“Anything helpful?”

He shrugged. “Not really. A lot of it is about memory loss in elderly witches. Not so much about memory loss caused by Satanic possession. I’ll keep looking.”

“Let me know if you find anything,” she said, passing him on the steps. “I’m going to put my things inside. Are you ready to go to the Academy?”

He nodded and stood up. “First stop on the memory tour? I’m ready.”

“At least one of us is,” Sabrina said under her breath as she opened the door to the mortuary.

Nick insisted on teleporting them to the Academy. He landed them a little farther away than he intended – “Sorry, still recovering from the coma, I guess,” he said sheepishly – and they had to walk through the woods for a few minutes before reaching the building. The doors were wide open, Dorcas and Agatha on either side, burning sage to cleanse the entrance hall.

“Welcome home, Nicky,” they said in unison, looking him up and down. “Nice outfit.” They smirked as Nick and Sabrina passed. He nodded politely at them in return.

“Well, they haven’t changed a bit,” he muttered to Sabrina once they were out of earshot. “They might be the only thing about this place that hasn’t.” He craned his neck, taking in the new iconography festooning the walls of the Academy.

“Wait till you see the statue hall.”

They descended the steps into the main hall, where the statue of Baphomet and, later, the statue of Father Blackwood had sat. In their place now stood the statue of Lilith that Zelda loved to revile. It depicted the Queen of Hell seated on her throne, wearing her crown of bones. A crow perched atop the throne’s back. Sabrina thought the likeness was striking.

Nick stopped in front of it and studied it in silence for several long minutes. Finally, he let out a deep breath and turned to her. “So much has changed,” he said quietly. “It’s a little disorienting.”

She gave him a gentle smile. “You mean waking up to a totally new religion isn’t so easy to take in stride?”

One side of his mouth quirked up in a half-smile. “I mean, it’ll take some getting used to. But I think I can get on board with worshiping Lilith more easily than Lucifer. She seems a little less… demanding.” He continued studying her face. “No more devotions, right?” he asked, turning to Sabrina.

She forced herself to keep her face neutral. “No more devotions,” she confirmed.

“Anyway, that’s not why we’re here.” He shook his head as though clearing his thoughts. “Any memories in this room?”

“Sure, lots,” she said, “but I don’t know how much they’ll help if so much has changed around here.”

“I’d still like to hear them.” His eyes were earnest.

“Well, let’s see…” She began to walk around the statue, thinking of everything that had happened in that hall. “You were nominated for Top Boy here.”

Nick raised an eyebrow and began to follow her. “I was nominated for Top Boy?”

“Oh, don’t act so surprised, Scratch,” Sabrina said teasingly. “It was entirely unanimous.”

He looked down, smiling. “So, I _became_ Top Boy?”

“Well… not exactly…”

“No? Despite a unanimous nomination?” He raised an eyebrow at her, looking amused. “Your tone of voice is telling me that you had something to do with it, Spellman.”

“I just thought it was archaic to have the position filled only by male students, so – ”

“You decided to challenge me?”

“Actually,” she said, coming to a stop now that they had made a full circle around the Lilith statue, “you nominated me.”

He smiled, stopping next to her. “Old Nick does it again,” he said, chuckling.

She turned towards him. He looked amused by the story, pleased to hear he had nominated her, but… “You don’t remember any of it,” she said. It was not a question.

His face fell, as though he had just remembered the purpose of their visit. “Um… no,” he said, shaking his head. “Sorry. I think it’s that so much has changed.” He bit his lip. “Is there somewhere else we can try?”

She nodded. “Yes. But I think this time I won’t tell you why. Come on.” She gestured for him to follow her.

They made their way through the halls to the choir room. It was an area that hadn’t needed much renovation, so it was quiet, with no members of the coven bustling about. Sabrina opened the door and walked in.

The room was much the way she had seen it last: the upright piano, the music stands, the raised platforms for the choir members to stand on. It brought her back to her first day at the Academy, when what had worried her most was her course schedule. It seemed a long time ago now.

Nick walked past her into the choir room in silence. His brow was furrowed, and he looked deep in thought. She watched as he strode right up to the platforms and went to stand on the top level, to the right. He turned and looked out on the rest of the classroom.

“This is where I stood,” he said slowly.

She nodded. In truth, she wasn’t sure where he had been standing that day – she had been more concerned with the Weird Sisters, standing in the front and staring daggers at her – but he seemed to be truly remembering something.

His eyes met hers. “Is this where we first met?”

Her heart leapt. She nodded wordlessly, unconsciously taking a step toward him.

“And you sang.”

“Yes.” Her heart was pounding.

He swallowed. “Could you… sing it now?”

She took a deep breath. “I can try.” She closed her eyes, unable to bring herself to watch his reaction, and sang: “_It’s time we put our love behind you…_”

When she had sung a verse, she opened her eyes. Nick’s gaze was intense and unreadable. She stared back at him in silence, unsure what to say. How much had he remembered?

Then he closed his eyes and sat down on the platform. He put his face in his hands. “I’m sorry, Sabrina,” he said, his voice cracking. “I don’t remember anything.”

Her stomach twisted. “W-what do you mean?” she stuttered, going to kneel in front of him. “You knew this was where we met, you knew I sang – ”

He shook his head, still not meeting her gaze. “I guessed,” he whispered. “The other night, Prudence asked me if I could remember what you sang when we first met. It made sense that it was in the choir room. I hoped that if I heard you sing, I might remember… but…”

She blinked back tears. She hadn’t known how bad it would hurt to think he had remembered her and to have that hope dashed. She pressed her lips together and stood.

“It’s fine,” she said. “You tried.”

It came out more harshly than she had intended. Nick’s head jerked up, and she could see pain mirrored on his face, too. Her words had hurt.

She couldn’t bring herself to comfort him. She turned away.

She went to the piano, where several loose pages of sheet music lay. She shifted them around until she found a page from “Always Is Always Forever.” She folded it and put it in her pocket. At least she’d gathered her first ingredient.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost 100% Nabrina content? ✓  
Light sexiness in flashbacks/dreams? ✓  
Amnesia-fueled angst? ✓✓✓✓✓✓✓
> 
> I had fun writing that one! I was worried about writing Nick and Sabrina together since I haven't had to do it for the first three chapters, so please let me know what you thought. It's hard to strike the balance of Sabrina knowing him and wanting to help but being conflicted and Nick not knowing her but being immediately intrigued and (obv) attracted to her, but also scared by the fact that he can't remember a full year of his life. How did it strike you?
> 
> More Nabrina content in the next one -- the memory tour continues!


	5. But My Heart and Thoughts Drift Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of the tour of Nick and Sabrina's memories together! Almost like what 30 Rock calls "sexual time travel" -- but not quite. Perhaps more like a relationship autopsy?
> 
> Another shorter one because I was busy this past week and wanted to be able to update sooner rather than later! Still planning to keep it to 13 chapters, but I may have to push it if I can't get to everything I want to in the next chapter. It's good to be flexible? Maybe?

Sabrina fell into bed that night utterly exhausted, yet she slept poorly. She dreamt of sacrificing the goat for the mnemosynous draught and collecting its blood, but when she looked down she saw that the throat she was slitting was Nick’s. She let out a cry and tried to release him, but her fingers were tangled in his hair. He looked up at her with pain in his eyes. As blood ran down his throat into the stone sarcophagus, he whispered, “I’m glad I can still be of use to you.”

She woke in a cold sweat. She didn’t fall back asleep until nearly an hour later, when Salem jumped up and curled into a ball on her chest. His purring soothed her pounding heart.

When she stumbled downstairs for breakfast on Tuesday morning, she found Hilda, Zelda, and Ambrose all in the kitchen. It was a small comfort to have a morning full of Spellmans.

“Morning, cousin,” Ambrose greeted her around a mouthful of cereal. “How did the first day of Nicholas’s grand memory tour go?”

“Terrible.” She fell into the chair and put her head in her hands. “We went to the Academy last night, and he couldn’t remember anything.”

“Well, the Academy looks quite different from when Nicholas was last there,” Ambrose allowed. “It would be hard to jog a memory under the circumstances.”

Sabrina shook her head. “No, that’s not it. I thought it could be in the statue hall, but the choir room hasn’t changed at all and still nothing. Even with prompting. _Nothing_.”

“Tea?” Hilda proffered sympathetically.

“I’m so sick of tea. Don’t we have any coffee?” Sabrina whined. “Espresso? Even, like, Red Bull? I haven’t gotten a full night’s sleep since before Nick woke up.”

“I can double the leaves in the tea for you, dear, but it will be quite bitter.”

“As long as it wakes me up, I don’t care how bitter it is.”

“It’ll match your attitude,” Zelda said, raising an eyebrow.

Sabrina glared at her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ambrose trying to hide a smirk in his cereal bowl.

“Sorry I’m not sunshine and rainbows today, Aunt Zee,” she said sarcastically. “Maybe you can give me a pass because the Dark Lord tortured my boyfriend’s memories out of him, and they’re so far buried that it’ll take a potion stronger than Dorian’s moonshine to unearth them again.”

“First of all, Sabrina, you will not take that tone with me,” said Zelda, her voice clipped. She put down her paper. “Second, I praise Lilith every day you are _not_ sunshine and rainbows. What a dreadful thought. No – you are… a chill wind and a full moon under courageous Leo. You are a smart, capable witch whom we have raised to thrive under conflict. You will see this through and will not – _quail_ – at the first sign of difficulty.”

Sabrina was quiet. She was not prepared to respond to Zelda’s particular brand of stern pep-talks after the night she had had.

“Auntie Zee is right, cousin,” Ambrose added, his tone noticeably gentler than Zelda’s. “Nicholas’s memories may be buried more deeply than you had hoped, but at least you know more than you did before.”

“That’s right, love,” said Hilda, pouring hot water over the tea steeper. “It will help you calibrate the strength of the mnemosynous draught. Perhaps circumambulate the cauldron thirteen times counterclockwise and let it boil for thirteen minutes. That will make it quite strong.”

“I guess last night did have one silver lining,” Sabrina admitted. “I got the first ingredient for the potion. Some sheet music from the choir room.”

“Well, there you go!” Hilda smiled broadly. “Not all bad, then, was it?”

“I have a few other places planned for us to go. I suppose I can try to gather some more ingredients there.”

She chewed her lip, thinking of the week ahead. They were supposed to go to the desecrated church that night, Dorian’s the next, and Baxter High on Thursday. There would be several opportunities to pick up some ingredients, but she didn’t know how many more times she could stand to take Nick somewhere meaningful only to have him remember nothing.

“How many memory ingredients do I need to get, Auntie Hilda?”

“There’s no hard and fast rule. Five or six is the usual number.” Hilda set the tea cup in front of her.

Sabrina looked at the steaming cup thoughtfully. “If doing things in thirteens makes the draught stronger,” she said slowly, “wouldn’t it make sense to use thirteen memories?”

She knew from a lifetime of experience that the look shared between her aunties meant they found her suggestion utterly naïve, at best – simply stupid, at worst.

After a moment, Zelda asked, “How many places did you have in mind to take Nicholas, Sabrina?”

“Three more places,” she said. She could already see where this line of questioning was going. “Maybe four.”

“As is appropriate,” Zelda said, nodding. “Five or six is the usual number of memories used for a mnemosynous draught because increasing that number makes finding distinctive, strongly symbolic ingredients exponentially more difficult. Perhaps if you and Nicholas had been together for years, you would have a deeper well of memories from which to draw, but even wedded couples often use only eight or nine. Only so many memories stay with you.”

Sabrina sipped her bitter tea. She understood what Zelda had said, but she wasn’t ready to let it go. “In _theory_, though,” she pressed, “wouldn’t it make it stronger? Because of the Principle of Thirteens?”

Hilda pursed her lips and bobbed her head from side to side hesitantly. “_If_ you managed to find thirteen distinct ingredients that were _all_ strongly symbolic of thirteen distinct memories – then, in _theory_, yes, it would increase the strength.”

“But I would advise you to focus on ensuring the symbolic strength of the handful of ingredients you already have in mind.” Zelda’s expression told Sabrina that as far as her aunt was concerned, the matter was settled. Sabrina turned back to her tea.

***

After school, Sabrina walked through the woods to meet Nick at the desecrated church. She used the time alone to collect herself. She knew that she had been harsh with him the previous night, in the choir room. He was trying to regain his memories under disorienting circumstances; he didn’t need her to be cruel on top of it.

He was waiting for her outside the church when she arrived. He was back in his own clothes, having gathered his belongings from the dormitories the night before. It was nice to see him looking like himself again, but she kind of missed seeing him in a T-shirt and distressed jeans. It had been a visual reminder that he was different from the Nick she remembered. Plus, he sorta pulled it off.

He stood up as she approached and gave quick wave. She greeted him a little awkwardly and then fell silent. They hadn’t spoken since the choir room.

After a few seconds, Nick broke the uncomfortable silence.

“I’m sorry for last night.”

“What?” She gave him a puzzled look. “Why are _you_ sorry?”

“For the choir room,” he said. “I was acting like I remembered when I was just… making educated guesses. I think I gave you false hope. And that made it worse when it turned out I didn’t remember.” His expression was gentle, concerned.

He was as observant as ever.

“You’re right, it did make me think you remembered,” she admitted. “And that made it hurt more when you didn’t. But it was still no reason for me to be short with you. This must be hard for you, too.”

He gave a slight smile. “The company makes it better.”

She couldn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes. “You know, you haven’t changed much at all, Mr. Scratch. Still the world’s biggest flirt.”

“Oh, so I flirted with you?” His expression was wicked. He was asking questions he already knew the answer to.

“Don’t you flirt with everybody?”

“Not everybody. Only with people I find beautiful or interesting,” he said, still smiling. “You’ve got it all, Spellman. I can’t help myself.”

“That much is clear,” she teased, smiling back. “Now come on, let’s see if flirting with me in the desecrated church rings any bells. It should feel _really_ familiar.”

She led him inside. The church, too, had changed, but not as much as the Academy. The Satanic icons had mostly been removed, although replacements appropriate to the Church of Lilith had not yet been made.

“Looks a little different in here, too,” Nick commented. “Although we know that doesn’t seem to have much of an effect on my memory.” He gave her a rueful look.

“How do you feel now?”

He took a deep breath and began to walk slowly around at the room. He studied it in silence. After a minute, though, he let out the breath and grimaced. “To be honest, I’m not getting anything.”

She nodded, trying not to let her disappointment show. It was what she had expected, but it was nevertheless hard to hear.

“But, Sabrina…” He turned to her and walked over to stand just in front of her. His face was sad but earnest. “Just because I can’t remember what happened here doesn’t mean I don’t want to know.” His dark eyes searched hers. “Would you tell me why this place was important? Please?”

Sabrina looked back at him uncertainly. She understood his request but… wouldn’t it be painful?

She chewed her bottom lip and noticed his eyes flick down to her mouth and linger there for just a half-second longer than was merely incidental. It sent a jolt to her stomach. He was thinking about kissing her, she realized – here, in this place where they had shared their first kiss. She knew it was probably just because Nick was… Nick. He was attracted to her, he could want to kiss her aside from the locale, but what if somehow subconsciously he had remembered…?

Finally, she nodded. “All right, I’ll tell you.”

He smiled, looking relieved. “Great. I’m all ears.”

She put a hand on his arm and began leading him to the front of the church. “Well… remember how I said I challenged you for Top Person? The trials all took place here.”

“That makes sense,” he said, nodding. “And that reminds me, Spellman, you never told me who won. Just being modest? Am I speaking to the first-ever Top Girl of the Church of Night?”

She laughed and shook her head. “No. Actually, every time I tried to study, I was attacked by demons.”

He frowned. “Someone was summoning demons to stop you studying?”

“So it seemed. I didn’t know who it was. A lot of people weren’t particularly pleased with me running for the position,” she said. “I even accused _you_, actually.”

“I wouldn’t.” His tone was absolute.

“You didn’t,” she agreed, stopping him at the front of the room. “In fact, you decided to stand with me in front of everyone and accuse the person we both thought was the most likely culprit.” She turned to face him and hesitated. Then, feeling bold, she grabbed his hand – just as she had that day when they had summoned the demons before the entire coven.

He looked down at their hands and back up at her. He looked surprised, perhaps even a little exhilarated, by her touch. “Who?”

“Father Blackwood.”

His jaw dropped. “We accused Father Blackwood of summoning demons to attack you? In front of the whole coven?” He let out a low whistle, raising his eyebrows. “I know I’ve said it before, but Spellman, you must really be something.”

She smiled at him and squeezed his hand for just a second before letting go.

“So what happened after that?” he asked. “I can’t imagine Father Blackwood responding well to being _j’accused_ in front of the entire coven.”

“It wasn’t him, after all. The demons had come on their own, likely because of the prophecy about me – another very long story,” she added, seeing his curious expression. “And neither of us became Top Person. Blackwood named my cousin Ambrose instead.”

Disappointment showed clear as day on Nick’s face. It took her aback. She realized she had never stopped to consider what the position of Top Boy may have meant to him. At the time, she hadn’t known that the Academy was the only home he had. But, looking back, she realized that he had been unanimously nominated, clearly qualified, probably preparing for years… yet he had still nominated her as his challenger, stood with her against Father Blackwood, and lost the chance to hold the highest position available to a student in the only place he felt safe and happy. For what? To spend time with her? It made her heart ache to think what he had given up to be with her.

_The Dark Lord asked him to get close to me, to be nice to me, to hold my hand… Maybe He had already asked._

The ache in her heart twisted into sharp pain. _This is why I _have _to know when it happened_, she thought grimly. Because either Nick had already been falling for her when he gave up his chance to be Top Boy in order to be with her, which made her heart feel like soaring – or it had all been a ploy to gain her trust so he could carry out the Dark Lord’s orders, which made her feel so sick she wanted to tear her own guts out.

She had to know.

She had to get his memories back.

“Didn’t ring any bells?” she forced herself to ask, attempting nonchalance.

Nick concealed his disappointment with an apologetic expression. “No,” he said. “Nothing.”

“That’s fine. Kind of what I was expecting. I can pick up some summoning chalk as that memory’s potion ingredient, anyway,” she responded, trying for a bright tone. She turned and fished around in her purse. “But actually, we’ve still got another memory to go through here.” She pulled out a sheaf of paper and slapped it to his chest. She grinned up at him. “Get ready to read some lines, Lucifer.”

A few minutes later, they were at the front of the church, roughly where Zelda’s blocking had instructed them to stand when the makeshift stage had been there. Nick was looking at her over his copy of the script, incredulous. “_This_ is what we performed? This doesn’t sound like the story I remember. I mean, Blackwood actually has Lilith say, ‘I wish I were worthy’? She rejected Adam because he demanded she lie beneath him, and now she’s saying she’s not worthy? She’s the mother of demons!”

“Technically, she’s Queen of Hell, now,” Sabrina said, amused at Nick’s indignation. “But yeah, Father Blackwood kind of went off the misogynist deep end after his son was born.”

“No kidding. I always knew Father Blackwood was a little… _old-fashioned_… but I never realized to what extent.” He sighed over the script and shook his head. “Well, let’s get started anyway. From the scene in Gehenna, you said?”

Sabrina nodded and closed her eyes for a moment, trying to get back into character. She still remembered the lines from this scene – the scene where she had known she and Nick would have to kiss. She thought back to the weeks leading up to the performance. Even when she had been just Dorcas’s understudy, when she had thought there was no chance she would ever _actually _act opposite Nick, she had still fixated on this scene. In her room, practicing her lines, she had often imagined what it would be like to have Nick’s mouth on hers, his hand on the small of her back, even if it was just in the play…

And then she had always berated herself. She was supposed to be in love with Harvey! Even if they couldn’t date, she would still always love him and only him… wouldn’t she?

So then why did her heart race whenever she thought of Nick and read those two small words in the script: _They kiss_?

And that kiss… She still remembered the electric feeling of kissing Nick for the first time. He had grabbed her and pulled her to him, his lips hot and passionate but somehow soft. It felt like a jolt of straight adrenaline, setting her fingers and toes tingling. She had gripped his costume unconsciously, pressing into him. And when they had pulled apart… the look on his face was full of desire but also surprise, amazement, almost awe. She knew then that he had felt it, too, what had passed between them – and that, in that moment, all either of them wanted was to feel it again.

But the show, as they say, must go on.

Now she and Nick stood in the darkened church alone, with no audience to their reprise. She was surprised to feel a little of that same rush that she had felt practicing her lines in her room. She took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and began:

“Life is untroubled in this cave with you here, Lucifer Morningstar…”

Even though he didn’t know the lines by heart, Nick was good. He managed to hold her eye contact, reading ahead so that he could deliver the lines fluidly, with emotion. Sabrina was so focused on his performance that she was almost startled when he took her hands. It was improvised, she told herself immediately – but it was also part of the stage direction Zelda had given them.

Had he remembered? Her heart was pounding. She scrutinized him for any sign he had.

“Together, we can bring the Truth of the Morningstar to the masses,” he said, “and you’ll rule beside me, as my queen.” He did not even glance at the script.

_He knows the lines_, she thought wildly. _Or some part of him does_.

“I wish I were worthy of such a station,” she said.

“Oh, Lilith.” His eyes were dark, unreadable, looking at her as though she were the only woman in the world – just as they had been that night, with Nick as Lucifer. “Give yourself to me, and I will make you worthy.”

Then his right arm slipped around her waist, tugging her to him. She went willingly, just as she had the night of the play. It was the same. It was all the same. She was sure he remembered. Her heart leapt as she found her face inches from his.

He swallowed audibly. “It says, ‘They kiss’,” he croaked, his gaze flickering between her eyes and her lips.

She nodded, unable to speak. He was warm. It felt good to be in his arms again.

“Satan, I want to kiss you, Spellman,” he whispered, leaning his head closer to hers.

Her heart was pounding in her ears. She opened her mouth to respond.

Before she could say anything, he continued: “But first I need you to know…” His eyes were suddenly sad. “…I don’t remember any of this.”

It was like a bucket of cold water crashing over her. She stepped backward, out of his arms. She saw the same pained expression from the previous night flash across his face and knew that pain must be mirrored on her own. _You idiot, you did it again, you made yourself think he remembered when he didn’t just because you wanted it to be true._

“Sabrina, I’m sorry – ”

She cut him off by holding up a hand and shaking her head vigorously. “No, no, it wasn’t your fault,” she said, forcing her voice to be light, unaffected. “It’s just – you were following some stage direction we had from rehearsals, and it made it seem like you remembered, but – maybe it just seemed like the most natural thing to do, it was good stage direction, it matched the emotion of the scene, and – and anyone would do it, in the moment, so – ” She was gathering up her things and pulling her coat back on, looking everywhere but at him. She didn’t trust herself not to sob.

_Rrrrrip!_

The sound of tearing paper made her stop in her tracks. Nick was standing where she had left him, near the center of the imaginary stage, holding the script in one hand and a page he had torn from it in the other. He held out the half-crumpled page to her.

“Here,” he said, his voice thick.

She took it from him wordlessly and glanced down at the page. As she had expected, it was the scene they had just been reading. Her eyes immediately landed on those same small words, as though drawn magnetically to them.

_They kiss._

“For the potion,” he explained throatily. His eyes were shiny and vulnerable, but his mouth was set, determined. “I want to remember it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts??
> 
> Tbh I wanted to make them kiss but I have Big Plans for their first kiss in this fic. Alas!
> 
> Also did def brainstorm astro charts for all main characters to help me with characterization. #astrowitch I gave Sabrina a Leo Moon, which I managed to shoehorn into this chapter. What do y'all think of Nick as Pisces Sun/Aquarius Moon/Scorpio Rising? Also Cap Mars? Yes, I may have put too much thought into some nonsense but that's fandom baybeeeee~~
> 
> Btw, did anyone else see the interview with Gavin Leatherwood where he said it was possible the trauma of being possessed by the Dark Lord could make Nick less interested in Sabrina? My heart! ಢ_ಥ I will be so sad if that's what they do. I know I'm writing mad ~~angst~~ but at least I know it's going to have a happy ending. I don't trust the CAoS writers not to force-feed us a Habrina endgame.


	6. To Sabrina Spellman

“Finally,” Nick breathed, shrugging out of his coat beside Sabrina, “a place that truly hasn’t changed.”

Dorian’s Gray Room looked the same as it had the first time Sabrina had seen it: dimly lit, traditionally furnished, and patronized exclusively by warlocks dressed to the nines. She felt just as out of place as she always did, but this time the familiar thrill of defying the patriarchy didn’t accompany that discomfort. Instead, she felt dread. She and Nick had many memories here, but at the moment the only one she could see clearly was him walking out from behind the curtain to tell her he had betrayed her. In her mind’s eye, she could still see the grim, broken look on his face as he confessed.

Today, however, _this_ Nick looked happy. She could tell he was relieved to finally be somewhere familiar. His face was slightly flushed from the cold outside, his dark eyes sparkling in the light from the chandelier as he turned to her and smiled. She felt a little heat rise to her own chilly cheeks, which were already tingling from the warmth inside the Gray Room.

They descended the steps together to the main floor of the club.

“Nicky, darling,” called Dorian Gray, beautiful as ever, from behind the bar. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes!”

“Good to see you, too, Dorian,” Nick responded, leaning on the bar with an easy smile.

“And I see you’ve brought your better half. Welcome back to the Gray Room, Ms. Spellman.”

“Dorian.” She tipped her head toward him in greeting. She was honestly never quite sure what to make of Dorian Gray. He was always pleasant to her, but it seemed to be mainly out of politeness. _Probably because the only time I see him, I’m breaking one of his club’s cardinal rules, _she mused.

“Long time no see, Nicky, I’ve missed you,” said Dorian. “Too busy to stop for a bourbon? Or simply too happy?” His eyes flickered briefly to Sabrina.

“It’s a long story,” Nick chuckled, “and I don’t even know all of it.”

At Dorian’s raised eyebrow, Sabrina spoke up: “Nick lost all his memories of the past year.”

Dorian turned to Nick, his expression as sympathetic as the aloof warlock could manage. “You mean to say you don’t remember flagrantly breaking the Gray Room’s policies at every turn? And my indulging you because of your undeniable beauty? I’m crushed.”

“We’re brewing him a mnemosynous draught to help get them back.”

Once again, Dorian’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “And so you’ve brought him here to see what he remembers of your time in the Gray Room? That must be a very… _complex_… draught you’re crafting.” His tone told her he knew all too well the type of memories the Gray Room held for them. _Complex_ was putting it mildly. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Nick look at her.

“It is,” she said, keeping her eyes fixed on Dorian. “And we were hoping to pick up some ingredients for the draught while we’re here.”

“But of course. I’m happy to help two of my best, albeit illicit, customers. And I know just the thing.” He gestured to the armchairs by the fireplace. “Please, take a seat. I’ll be right over with some libations.”

Sabrina and Nick made their way to the chairs by the fire. As they drew nearer, though, her breath caught in her throat, her heart pounding in her ears. They were the same ornate, high-backed chairs that had been set at Lucifer’s table that night.

_There has only ever been one path for you, Sabrina. The Path of Night… I have made quite sure of that, haven’t I, Nicholas?_

The incredulity, the horror, the feeling of the world falling away when Nick walked out from behind the curtain –

“Sabrina? Sabrina, are you okay?”

She jerked her head, pulling herself from the memory. Nick was already sitting in one of the chairs – _those _chairs – looking up at her with concern.

“I-I’m fine,” she said, with an airy hand wave. She forced herself to take a seat in the chair across from him, but she only perched on its edge.

He looked at her sympathetically, even a little regretfully. “I know it must be hard to do this again. I haven’t remembered anything we’ve talked about so far.”

“No, that’s not it,” she said, shaking her head. “And I know that’s not your fault. It’s just – ”

At that moment, Dorian arrived with a tray of drinks. “Two sloe gin fizzes,” he announced. “The very first drink you ordered here for your beautiful rule-breaker, Nicky, dear.” He bent down so they each could take a glass; then he stood back up, tucked the tray beneath his arm, and fished a small vial of green liquid out of his pocket. “And one for the road,” he said with a wink, waving it in front of Sabrina. “I’d like Nicky to remember the _good _times here, after all. As I’m sure you would, too, Ms. Spellman.”

_Of course Dorian Gray would be a skilled potion brewer_, she realized as she wordlessly took the vial. _He probably knows all there is to know about mnemosynous draughts. How to ensure the symbolism of the ingredients, how the draught is built on the strength of the relationship… And this place was witness to our relationship’s weakest point. _

“Thanks, Dorian,” said Nick.

Dorian bowed his head in acknowledgement and swept away.

Nick raised his glass to her, and she did the same. They both took a sip. The taste was familiar and sweet. She had quickly “graduated” to stiffer drinks at Dorian’s, but thinking back to that first night, she realized Nick must have ordered the fizzes deliberately. They were delicious and elegant, a little wicked and strangely sensual in the ornate glasses. Nick had been giving her a taste of his life to see if she liked it.

She had.

It was strange to be back here, a place that so clearly represented her surrender to her witch half, a place that was so decidedly _not mortal_. And a place that she felt so deeply ambivalent about, now. Sure, it had good memories, but even those had been tainted by subsequent ones. Now that she was here, with Nick, and was supposed to be filling him in on their shared memories together, she was faced with the question that had plagued her all day:

How much should she tell him?

Auntie Hilda had said that the mnemosynous draughts worked on the strength of the relationship, but their relationship had never been weaker than at Dorian’s Gray Room. Did she risk weakening the potion if she told him about those memories – memories that made her question their entire relationship, even now? Or was she duty bound to give him the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Despite mulling it over for hours – days, even – she still had no idea what the right choice was. She had put off coming here as part of the memory tour for just that reason. She had hoped that, when the time came, she would _just know_… but now the time was come, and conflict still raged in her.

“Penny for your thoughts, Spellman?”

She blinked out of her reverie. Nick was lounging in the chair, his dark eyes trained on her, his drink held lazily in one hand. He seemed to be truly in his element.

“I was just thinking about… everything,” she sighed. “Lots of memories in this place.” She stared into the flickering firelight, practically feeling her eyes glaze over as she returned to her thoughts.

After several long moments, she heard a _clink_ as Nick set down his glass on the marble side table. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. The firelight flickered on his face, casting shadows across its angles. He always looked handsomest in this light, she thought, especially when he was gazing at her as deeply as he was now. She saw brief hesitation on his face, and then he took her hands in his. Hers were still cold from outside, but his were already warm.

“Tell me?” he asked.

She couldn’t say no.

But she also couldn’t tell him everything.

Not yet.

So she started with something safe. She told him about him taking her here after the Top Boy competition, about him toasting her as High Priestess. Even now, he took the idea in stride, raising his glass to her again. She sipped her drink gratefully, still amazed by how effortlessly he supported her.

“So, what else?” He was smiling expectantly, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

Neither of them had brought up whether or not he remembered.

They both knew he hadn’t.

“What else…” she murmured. “Let me think…”

There was so much else here, but little of it good. He had hurt her in his drunken sorrow after their expulsion, and he had hurt her when he revealed his betrayal. Their relationship had suffered here. And still she was torn. They were powerful, vivid memories. Putting them in the draught could make it stronger. Or it could just serve as a reminder of how broken they had been by the end.

“There was a party here,” she said finally, simply to fill the silence. “Before Lupercalia. We danced.”

It wasn’t an important memory, really. What had been important about Lupercalia was also complicated. Nick had lied to her and put her in danger, and she had killed his familiar, the only family he had. He had been deeply vulnerable in front of her and yet had made her question his trustworthiness – a question that had turned out to be warranted.

After a moment, Nick sighed and set down his glass. “Sabrina, I appreciate what you’re trying to do for me. I really do,” he said, his tone serious. “But I can tell its hard, and it doesn’t seem like it’s getting any easier. I’m not remembering anything, and I hate seeing you struggle through this every night. Maybe this so-called memory tour is just… unnecessary suffering.”

She was silent. She had to admit he was right. If the point of the memory tour was to figure out how deeply buried his memories were, then mission accomplished: They were buried really fucking deep. Other than Nick unwittingly following some stage direction in the church the night before – which could have easily been a coincidence – he had given no indication of remembering anything at all.

“You’re right. We already have the information we needed from this,” she admitted, swirling the dregs of her fizz in its glass. “I know I apparently need to make the strongest mnemosynous draught the world has ever seen. Symbolism, ughh…” She groaned, slumping into the chair.

He laughed. “Well, maybe I can still help,” he offered. “What do you need to do to make it strong?”

“The main thing is that the ingredients have to be strongly symbolic of the memories they represent. And then there’s the Principle of Thirteens.”

“The Principle of Thirteens?”

“Some potion theory that Auntie Hilda told me about. Basically, the more stuff you do in thirteens, the stronger it becomes. Grinding ingredients thirteen times, letting it boil for thirteen minutes, that sort of thing.”

“I see. Well, I can definitely grind ingredients. And count to thirteen.” He grinned at her, and she laughed. “We already have four ingredients, right? The sheet music, the chalk, the script, and now the drink. How many more are you planning to get?”

She straightened up in the chair. “Well…”

Nick leaned forward, his eyes sparkling mischievously. “Spellman, you look like you’ve got a bright idea.”

One side of her mouth quirked up. He was already getting to know her. Again.

“I think we should get ingredients for thirteen memories,” she said, leaning in, too. “Hilda and Zelda said it would be too hard to get ingredients for that many memories, but they also said that if I could, it should, in theory, make the draught stronger.”

“And Lilith knows I need that,” he said, nodding. “I’m in. What are you thinking?”

“Well, that’s sort of the problem,” she admitted, leaning back. “I haven’t really gotten much further than that.”

He shrugged. “No problem. Prudence told me a few things that happened over the past year. Maybe I can help. Two heads are better than one, after all. What do you say? Scratch and Spellman, at it again?”

Sabrina gave him a slow smile and nodded. “I don’t see why not. It’d be nice to get another perspective.”

“Great.” Nick rubbed his hands together, looking truly excited for the first time in a while. She had forgotten how much he loved to problem solve. “You mentioned Lupercalia earlier, and it reminded me that Prudence said you and I were matched. Maybe an ingredient to represent that night?”

She pretended to be focused on fishing the cherry out of her drink to avoid making eye contact. “I had the same thought, but I wasn’t sure what.”

“What about milk and blood, from the anointment basket on the night of the Courting? And another from the actual night of Lupercalia – then we could get two ingredients out of it. Something like… a scrap of cloth from the red cloaks the women wear, or – ”

“Wolf fur,” Sabrina whispered, thinking of Amalia.

“ – From the pelts on the men, yes. I should really be writing this down…” Nick pulled a pen from his jacket pocket and looked around for a napkin. He seemed not to notice her tone at all; he was totally focused on the task at hand. She handed him a napkin from the side table next to her chair, which he took gratefully and began scribbling on. “Milk and blood… wolf fur…” he muttered. “All right, what else?”

They ended up ordering another round of drinks as they brainstormed ingredients. Nick was surprisingly helpful; Sabrina hadn’t realized just how much Prudence had told him about the previous year – and how much he had retained. He asked about the ritual in which they had sacrificed Agatha, suggesting Agatha’s blood (which Sabrina rejected as a bit too macabre, even for her) and then, as a substitute, grave dirt from the Spellman plot (which Sabrina approved with relief). He also brought up her father’s manifesto, which prompted Sabrina to think of saltwater as an ingredient, representing Nick’s journey under the sea.

“’Kay, those two make eight,” he said, writing down _saltwater_ on the napkin. “Only five more. What else did Prudence say…” He tapped the pen against the table thoughtfully. Then he shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. “She mentioned that you had, uh… some unusual powers?” He seemed not to know whether it was an awkward question to ask.

She nodded, ticking them off on her fingers. “Healing, resurrection, control of the weather… perhaps flight, although jury’s still out on that one.”

He let out a short laugh. “Spellman, you never cease to amaze me,” he said, shaking his head. “And where was I during this? Any chance I was doing anything ingredient-worthy?”

“Actually, the first time the powers manifested was in the desecrated church, which the witch-hunters had re-sanctified, so you couldn’t enter it,” she said. “Harvey was the one who saw it all.”

“Your mortal boyfriend?” His tone was neutral.

“Ex-boyfriend,” she corrected him, “but yes. Later, though, you came to my room and told me you regretted not being there and said you wanted to… be the one to catch me when I fell.” She looked at him when she said it, searching for any sign of recognition.

He pursed his lips and tapped the pen against the chair’s armrest. “But no ingredients?” was all he said.

And she felt like a fool, but that question hurt more than almost anything else in this entire endeavor. It was like their conversation that night – and everything that had come after – was useless to him if it hadn’t produced an ingredient to go in the draught.

Did _anything _matter, if it couldn’t go in the draught?

“No,” she said quietly. “No ingredients.”

Nick quickly seemed to realize that he had said something wrong. “Well, we’ve got eight, anyway,” he said, attempting brightness. “That’s twice as many as before. And we don’t need to think of them all tonight.”

She smiled weakly at him, stirring her barely touched drink.

“Hey,” he said softly, finally setting down his pen. His eyes searched hers deeply. “We’re gonna do this. And you know why? Because you’re Sabrina Spellman.” He smiled at her. “I know I sound like a broken record by now, but you’re really something else. I don’t need to remember the past year to know that. You’re strong, and smart, and stunningly beautiful. And on top of that, you apparently have, like, healing powers, so clearly there’s nothing that you can’t do.”

Finally, she smiled. He sat back, looking relieved. “How about we just put a pin in this for tonight and finish our drinks, huh?” He held out his glass.

She nodded slowly and clinked her glass to his. Nick began telling her a story of a time he _did_ remember at Dorian’s, from before he met her.

But Sabrina was barely listening. They may have still been five ingredients short of thirteen, but she had just thought of yet another bright idea.

***

The next night, Sabrina climbed the stairs to the second floor. Nick was out this evening, which was unusual but just as well – she would rather be able to talk about him without worrying about him overhearing.

The door to Ambrose’s bedroom was open. He had just come home from the Academy, where Sabrina knew he and Prudence had spent much of their day poring over Father Blackwood’s old files for any clues as to where he might have gone. She had been waiting for Ambrose to return all day and was relieved to see that Prudence wasn’t with him.

She needed to talk to her cousin alone.

She knocked lightly on the open door, ready to enjoy some one-on-one quality time with her cousin – but her stomach suddenly dropped when she saw Ambrose holding a bundle of folded shirts, his suitcase open in front of him on the bed.

“You’re leaving?” she asked. She felt almost like a child, asking so plaintively, but she couldn’t help it; there was little she loathed more than seeing Ambrose packing.

His head jerked up at her knock, one of Hilda’s lemon biscuits hanging from his lips. He quickly dropped his clothes into the suitcase and pulled the biscuit from his mouth. “Ah, cousin,” he greeted her brightly, continuing to pack clothes into the bag. “Yes, Pru thinks she’s made a breakthrough in Blackwood’s files. Apparently he had some contacts in Mozambique, which tracks with some clues we found while in Nepal. We may be able to catch him there before he finds out we’re on to him if we hurry.”

She went to sit on the bed beside the suitcase. “I hate to see you go,” she said sadly.

At her tone, Ambrose paused his packing. He rested a hand comfortingly on her shoulder. “I hate to see me go, too,” he said, just as sadly. “But you know I’ll be back again. Besides, you have your hands full with Nicholas, coz, you’ll barely know I’m gone.”

She tried to smile at him, but it came out a grimace. “Actually, I came up here because I wanted to talk to you about that,” she admitted. “I’d like some advice.”

Realizing she had come for a serious discussion, Ambrose took a seat on a chair beside the dresser, picking up the tin of biscuits as he did so. He offered one to Sabrina, but she refused. “Suit yourself,” he said, taking a bite of another one. “More for the road. Hopefully this time they’ll tide me over until we get back.”

She rolled her eyes. She knew Ambrose loved her and their aunties very much and missed them when he roamed, but sometimes she wondered if what he missed most about home was Hilda’s baking.

“So, what can I help you with, cousin?”

“Well…” she sighed. “The truth is, I don’t know what to do about Nick. We’ve gone to three different places on this ‘memory tour,’ and he hasn’t remembered _anything _at all. I’ve tried telling him things, not telling him things, giving him little prompts to see if he’ll remember on his own – but nothing has worked.”

Ambrose nodded, waiting for her to continue.

“Last night, I had to take him to Dorian’s,” she said, as though wrenching the words from deep within her. “It was so hard. So much has happened there, Ambrose. That’s where I found out that Nick had betrayed me to the Dark Lord.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Well, _he_ didn’t.” She couldn’t hide the bitterness in her voice. “And I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about it and have him not know or even care what that betrayal did to me.”

“Now, cousin,” Ambrose said gently. “He may not remember it, but surely Nicholas – even a Nicholas without his memories – would care that he had hurt you. Besides, you’ve had good memories at Dorian’s, too, and at the other places you’ve taken him to – ”

“But that’s just it, Ambrose,” she burst out. “Even those memories – those _good_ memories – they’re tainted by that betrayal. I can’t stop wondering if any time Nick ever talked to me, ever helped me, ever was nice to me, was because of the Dark Lord’s ask. And I won’t know for sure until Nick gets his memories back and can tell me exactly when that happened.”

Ambrose tilted his head, his eyes full of sympathy. “Sabrina…”

She swiped quickly at her eyes, which were suddenly brimming with tears. “So that’s why I came up here to ask your advice,” she sniffed, attempting to regain her composure.

He looked at her with curiosity. “Of course. Shoot.”

She took a breath and squared her shoulders. “I want to try to bring Nick’s memories back by myself. No mnemosynous draught, no memory tour. Just by myself. With my powers.”

She didn’t know what reaction she expected from Ambrose, but it was not what he gave her. Normally, when she suggested something like this, something that she knew he would consider dangerous and rash, he got angry, gave her a speech about respecting the laws of witch kind. And she knew how to match that anger and make her case. She was ready for it.

But instead, he simply regarded her with an unreadable expression and took another bite of his lemon biscuit.

She waited for what seemed like a full minute in silence before she started to squirm. She didn’t know what to make of his silence. Perhaps he was simply taking a while to process the idea.

“Well?” she finally asked, unable to wait any longer.

“…So, you want to use your powers to restore Nicholas’s memories.” It was more a statement than a question. His tone, like his face, was unreadable.

She nodded.

He took another thoughtful bite of biscuit and chewed it agonizingly slowly. After several seconds, he asked: “Do you even know how to do such a thing?”

“No, but I think I can figure it out,” she said quickly, almost tripping over her tongue to answer any questions he might ask.

He simply nodded slowly and returned to his biscuit. His movements were practically languid. He may as well have been lazing on the porch, watching the world go by.

Sabrina, on the other hand, was practically vibrating with eagerness and frustration. “Do you think it’s a good idea?” she demanded.

At that, Ambrose finally reacted. He slapped his hands on his thighs and barked out a laugh. “Do I think it’s a good idea, she asks!” he exclaimed to himself before looking at her again. “Do I think it’s a good idea for you to attempt to use powers you barely understand to reach into another witch’s brain, grab it by the synapses, and just start attempting to – to plug them back into the right sockets? No, cousin, I certainly do _not_ think that is a good idea.” He chuckled darkly. “But when have you ever cared what I thought?”

She frowned. “I _do_ care what you think, Ambrose – ”

“You most definitely do not,” he insisted. “Or perhaps you do when my opinions align with yours, but when your plan is to flagrantly reject all witch law and code and I tell you as much? Whose counsel do you follow then – mine or your own? I think history has taught us both the answer to that.”

She fell silent. She had to admit he was right.

He sighed and shook his head. “But even knowing all of that, I can’t help myself from attempting to dissuade you when I see you about to make such an error. What about the mnemosynous draught? You haven’t even tried it yet.”

Sabrina looked away. She didn’t know how to tell Ambrose that she was losing faith in the idea of the draught with every passing day. “How can I trust something that’s supposed to work on the strength of our relationship, when every place we go reminds me just how broken it was?” she finally said.

“So you’re giving up because it’s hard.” His tone was pitiless.

Anger flared in her breast. “That is _not_ fair. I am happy to do things that are hard. But sometimes the draught seems impossible.”

“But you haven’t even _tried_ it yet,” he said again.

“I just… I don’t know if it will work.”

“So you want to abandon a tried-and-true method for restoring buried memories because you’re having some doubts about it, yet you’re willing to try to use your poorly understood Satan-given powers to attempt to heal Nicholas’s brain instantly, with no idea how even to do so? I fail to see how that is _not_ you simply choosing the easy way out.”

“_Because_.”

“Because why?”

“Because – because what if his memories_ aren’t _buried?” Sabrina sobbed. “What if they’re just _gone_?”

Ambrose’s mouth had been open, ready to retort, but at her words he promptly closed it. Sabrina buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking.

“…Is that what you’re really afraid of, cousin?” The fire was gone from Ambrose’s voice, now; it gentle again.

She nodded, her face still in her hands. “The D-Dark Lord said He had b-burned Nick up while He was inside him,” she sniffled. “He said there was n-nothing left. And Nick’s soul wire was black and ch-charred, especially at the end. The end where he must have had his memories of the past y-year.”

“And you think perhaps your powers can restore those memories that the mnemosynous draught would not.”

She nodded again.

After a moment, she heard Ambrose sigh. She finally looked up and saw him rubbing a hand over his head. “I understand your concerns, cousin,” he said softly, “but I still think it is far too rash. You don’t know for sure that those memories are truly gone; the draught may work just fine. What does Nicholas say about it?”

She slid her eyes away from his. “I haven’t talked to him about it yet,” she said. “I came to you first.”

He snorted. “Am I supposed to be flattered?”

“Nick _wants_ to remember, Ambrose,” she said, ignoring his question. “He would want me to do anything I could to help him get his memories back. I’m doing it for him.”

Ambrose pulled up a knee and draped a forearm over it. He regarded her with an eyebrow raised. “And you truly believe that, cousin?”

She looked at him warily. “What do you mean?”

He inclined his head, pursed his lips. “Just that, in general, Nicholas seems to be right as rain. He has no lasting physical or mental injuries, despite having the Dark Lord’s essence trapped inside him for the past several months, which is surely a blessing from Lilith herself. He was not unhappy to learn about the Queen of Hell’s ascent, suggesting he retains his characteristic dedication to progressive reformation of the church. He’s clearly willing to have you and the rest of us teach him everything that has happened over the past year, so he can help with the renovation of the Academy and the formation of the Church of Lilith. His personality and intellect remain intact. All that is missing – ” he gestured at her with the half-eaten biscuit – “are his memories of you.”

“It’s not just his memories of _me_,” she protested. “It’s everything that happened to him in the past year!”

“And how many of the things that happened to him in the past year happened because he was following you? Supporting you? Falling in love with you?”

Her lips pressed together, her chin defiant but quivering. “What are you trying to say, Ambrose?”

He set both his feet on the floor and sat forward, his elbows resting on his knees. His expression was earnest. “Nicholas was not just your lover, Sabrina. He was your lieutenant. There was a time not long ago when you could tell him to jump and he would ask how high. I’m wondering if, perhaps, your motivations for restoring his memories are less than selfless.”

She stood abruptly at his words, hot tears welling up in her eyes again. Did he have to be so cruel? “How can you even – ”

He held out a hand placatingly. “I’m not finished, cousin. Please.” His tone was gentle but firm. He gestured for her to sit back down.

She hesitated for a moment before retaking her seat. She stared at him from behind the glaze of tears, willing them not to fall.

His eyes met hers unflinchingly. “I’m not trying to accuse you of anything, cousin. I’m not saying you must do this selflessly. It’s okay to be selfish. Hell knows, love is often selfish, especially among our kind. But I don’t know if you truly _love_ Nicholas. Do you?” His gaze was searching. She could barely hold it.

After a moment, he went on: “If you’re going to do this thing – use powers you don’t fully understand, put him in danger again when by rights you should be rejoicing that he’s not suffering any worse effects of his possession and, I shouldn’t have to remind you, _torture_ – to bring back his memories so that, in the very best-case scenario, you could say to him, what? ‘I care for you deeply, and by the way, when exactly did you betray me to the Dark Lord’? If that is all you could honestly say to Nicholas, after all he has been through, then I beg you – _beg you_ – to reconsider.”

Finally, the tears spilled from her eyes. “I understand what you’re saying, Ambrose,” she whispered, using every ounce of her willpower to hold her voice steady. “But Nick wants to get his memories back. He does. And I may not know exactly how I feel about him, but I do know that helping him do that is the right thing to do – by any means necessary.”

***

Nick slowly climbed the porch steps to the unfamiliar house. The porchlights were on, and a wooden bench sat beside the door, but for some reason the impression created was not particularly inviting. It felt as if somehow the house knew he was an unwelcome visitor.

_Oh, well. Here goes nothing. _

He raised his hand and knocked.

After a few moments, he saw a figure approach through the distorted glass. In another second, it opened, and an unfamiliar young man stood in the doorway, looking at him in confusion.

“Nick? What are you doing here?”

“Are you Harvey?”

The other young man – Harvey – nodded, but the confusion did not leave his face. “Uh… yeah…”

“I was hoping to talk to you about – ”

“Harvey! Who is it?” a voice shouted from inside the house.

“No one, Dad, just a – friend,” Harvey shouted back over his shoulder. Nick couldn’t help but notice the slight pause before the word _friend_. Harvey pulled a jacket off the coat rack beside the door, tugged it on, and stepped out onto the porch with Nick, closing the door behind him. “Let’s talk out here. So my Dad can’t hear us. He’s not really, uh, _in the loop_.”

Nick nodded. They both stood there a little awkwardly for a moment, before Nick stepped away to lean against the porch railing.

“So, uh, how are you doing?” Harvey asked, taking a seat on the bench. “After the whole possession thing?”

“Not too bad, all things considering,” Nick answered with a shrug. “And I guess thanks are in order. I heard you were part of the rescue team.”

Harvey smiled and nodded, clearly proud. “Me and the rest of the Fright Club.”

Nick nodded, pretending to know what the Fright Club was. Harvey seemed to be somehow disappointed by his lack of reaction to the group’s name.

“Well, thanks. To you and everyone else.” Nick cleared his throat. “Uh… Sabrina probably told you I lost my memory?”

“I heard from Roz, actually. She said you two were going to places where important stuff happened to relive the memories? That sounds brutal, man.”

Nick shrugged noncommittally. He was unsure why Harvey would use the word _brutal_ to describe it – the memory tour had mostly been difficult because he didn’t remember anything, not because of the memories themselves – but didn’t want to reveal his lack of understanding. Maybe the mortal knew something he didn’t.

“That’s sort of why I’m here, actually,” he said, segueing into his purpose. “I wanted to ask you about the night of the Greendale Thirteen.”

Harvey’s expression was blank. “The Greendale Thirteen?”

“Yeah. The witches who were hanged in old Greendale. Apparently Sabrina asked me to come protect you when they were summoned?”

“Ohh, the night of the tornado, sure. What about it?”

Nick hesitated. His ultimate goal in coming here was to gather another ingredient for the draught. He was pretty sure it technically counted as a memory of him and Sabrina, the potion’s drinker and the potion’s brewer, since she had asked him to protect Harvey – something he clearly would have had no reason to do otherwise.

He hadn’t told Sabrina about his plan to visit Harvey, in case nothing came of it, but he couldn’t quell the thrill in his stomach when he imagined coming back to her with a new ingredient in tow. She would probably light up, maybe even take his hands in hers and smile at him as sweetly as she had when he had first woken up in that unfamiliar attic room. He longed for her to touch him so tenderly again – longed for it in a way that he found confusing and frankly almost frightening.

So he definitely had to get an ingredient out of this solo memory tour side-trip. But he was just now realizing he also had an opportunity to hear about his relationship with Sabrina from someone other than Sabrina herself – someone who, presumably, wouldn’t look at him with thinly veiled despair when he couldn’t remember, try as he might. And he really did want to remember – not least because of what Prudence had told him.

_Sabrina Spellman, in your own words, taught you how to love._

Strangely, Nick thought it made some weird sort of sense to hear about it from a mortal – and one who had once loved Sabrina, at that.

“Sabrina sent me to help you, right?” he finally asked.

Harvey nodded. “Yeah. Me and my dad didn’t want to hole up at the school and our basement is safe enough – but it turned out the tornado wasn’t really a tornado. It _is_ Greendale, after all.” Nick thought he detected a hint of bitterness in his voice.

“And I just – came. To help.”

Harvey nodded again.

“Even though I didn’t know you?”

“Yeah…” Harvey trailed off, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion. “Is there something more specific you want to know, Nick?”

_Sure, loads, _he wanted to say. _Number one, why would I do that? Number two, did I seem like I had fallen in love with her then? Do you know when I did? In your expert mortal opinion, how do you know what love really is, and what is it about Sabrina Spellman that can make a warlock like me believe in it?_

Instead, though, he shook his head to clear his thoughts and said, “Yeah, do you have any, uh, small object or memento from that night that could conceivably be used as an ingredient in a potion? We need it to help restore my memories.”

At his words, Harvey looked deeply uncomfortable. “Magic, huh?” he muttered. “And that sounds like some real big magic, too.”

“No bigger than the ritual you helped Sabrina perform to get me out of Hell.”

“Fair enough.” He pursed his lips and seemed to be thinking hard. “To be honest, nothing’s springing to mind. You came in and just started chanting and throwing, like, gang signs at my doors and windows.”

“…Okay…” _Whatever that means_, Nick thought. He was rapidly coming to think that this had been a waste of time. The mortal seemed spooked by any mention of witchcraft.

He pushed himself off the porch railing and sighed. “Well, thanks anyway, Harvey,” he said, turning to go.

“Hey, wait.”

Nick paused as Harvey’s hand caught his arm. “What is it?”

“You called me Harvey.”

Nick looked at him sideways. “Uh, yeah. That _is_ your name, isn’t it?”

“No – I mean, yeah, it is, but that’s not why I – ” He was stumbling over his words, his expression strangely soft. “It’s just – before – when you had all your memories – you always called me, like, Harry or witch-hunter or something. Never Harvey.”

“Oh.” Nick didn’t know quite what to do with that information. “Why?”

“Not sure, but I think because of… Sabrina.”

They both fell quiet for a moment. Harvey seemed to realize he was still holding Nick’s jacket sleeve and suddenly let go.

“I was jealous of you?” Nick finally asked, almost incredulously.

Harvey shrugged, which Nick figured might as well have been a _Yeah, man_.

Nick resumed his position leaning against the porch railing. “Huh.”

That wasn’t like him. He was more of the share-and-share-alike type. And, not to be rude, but he couldn’t help wondering how he could ever be jealous of this _Harvey_, of all people. He was so vanilla, so boring, so unremittingly _mortal_.

_Maybe that’s why_.

Harvey bit his lip for a second, frowning. Then, seeming to make up his mind, he stood. “You know, what, Nick? I think I might actually have something for your potion.”

“Really? What?”

Harvey bent down to reach under the bench and pulled out a beaten-up flashlight. “It’s not from the night of the tornado,” he said, clicking the flashlight on, “but it’s something else you did for me. At Sabrina’s request, I think.”

Nick followed him down the porch steps and across the lawn. Only about ten yards from the porch, Harvey stopped and trained the old flashlight’s dim beam on the ground. Nick saw two patches of mud in the surrounding grass, the size and shape of footprints.

“It’s kind of a long story,” Harvey said quietly, “but I think you stopped some other witches from coming to kill my brother, after he was resurrected. Sabrina left, and I went to Tommy’s room and…” He swallowed audibly. “Afterwards, I came outside because I needed air, and I thought I saw three figures standing on the lawn for a second before they disappeared. I didn’t realize until the night of the tornado that one of them had been you.” He gestured at the marks on the ground. “When I came over, I saw these footprints here and two stakes over there. And, well, you know the old wives’ tale about trapping witches.”

Nick nodded slowly, taking in the footprints. They were small, with chunky heels. The kind of shoes the Weird Sisters wore.

“Nothing grows here anymore,” Harvey said, using the flashlight to illuminate the grass around the barren footprints. It was frosty in the cold November night but clearly had once been lush. “It’s been a year and – nothing. But I was thinking maybe you could take some of the dirt. For the memory potion.”

Nick considered the suggestion for a moment before saying, “Yeah, all right,” and kneeling on the cold ground. Harvey joined him a second later, holding the flashlight so he could see. The dirt was more like hard, frozen mud. His fingers were red and tingling painfully within seconds, scrabbling at the mud to pry some of it loose. When he had a small handful, they both stood back up.

“Not a bad idea,” he said. “This could work. Thanks, Harvey.”

“Cool. Glad I could help.” Harvey gave him a lopsided smile. “It _is_ still weird to hear you use my actual name, though.”

“Oh… So, what _should_ I call you?”

“…I mean, Harvey.”

Nick was surprised to find himself let out a short laugh. It was strange to think he had felt hostility toward Harvey, before. He was vanilla, sure, but maybe not so bad.

And maybe he _could _help him answer some questions, after all.

“So, I stopped these witches for you, at Sabrina’s behest,” he said slowly, “and saved you from the Greendale Thirteen, also for Sabrina. Do you know why?”

Harvey looked at him like it was a trick question. After a second, he seemed to realize Nick was asking him in earnest. “Uhh, well, at the time I kinda figured you wanted to, you know… get in her pants or whatever,” he mumbled, looking away. “I mean, we had only just broken up, and suddenly Sabrina’s sending some good-looking witch guy – ”

“Warlock.”

“ – warlock, okay, who says he’s her ‘friend’ to protect me? Like, why else would you do it? It just seemed like a pretty transparent play to me.” He shrugged. “And I guess it worked, since she brought you to the dance and all.”

“Dance?”

Now Harvey really looked surprised. “Yeah, the Sweethearts Dance. Wasn’t that part of your, like, memory extravaganza?”

Nick shook his head.

“Oh. Well.” Harvey shifted his weight from foot to foot. “It doesn’t really matter, it was just a silly high school dance. But that’s when I figured you two were dating for real. Next thing I know, we’re breaking you outta Hell, so. You musta made some kind of impression on her.” He laughed. “Understatement of the century, probably.”

Nick snorted. “Probably,” he said. “And I guess she made an impression on me, too.”

“Yeah, she’ll do that.”

They fell to amiable silence for a moment before Nick broke it. “Well, thanks again,” he said, holding up the cold chunk of mud. “For the, uh, dirt.”

Harvey laughed. “Yeah, man. Anytime.”

For the second time that night, Nick turned to go.

And for the second time, Harvey stopped him.

“Hey, uh…” He ran a hand through his hair nervously. “Look, I don’t know the first thing about magic or what goes into this potion you’re making. And I probably don’t have to tell you this – but then again, I guess right now you don’t really _know_ ’Brina,” he said, letting out a heavy breath. “The thing about Sabrina is, she’ll do anything for the people she loves. But sometimes she thinks she knows better than you what’s best. And that can make her reckless and short-sighted.”

The hot flash of loyal anger Nick felt at those words surprised even him. “Thanks, but Sabrina’s the only reason I’m not still in Hell, possessed by the Dark Lord,” he said, a little sharply. “I think I’ll take my chances.”

Harvey held up his hands defensively. “I’m not trying to bad-mouth her, man. It’s just something that I thought might be helpful for you to know. You guys are working on something that seems like it’s pretty difficult and delicate, and you’re at a – whaddaya call it? A knowledge deficit?” He shrugged. “Forget it.”

Nick deflated a little, unsure where his anger had come from. Just from someone saying something the slightest bit negative about Sabrina Spellman? “No, it’s fine,” he said, but the energy between them had turned sour. He pulled his coat around him. The night suddenly seemed cold.

“…Well, I’m gonna head in,” Harvey said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the house. “Um… Good luck, Nick.”

“Thanks.” He had to stop himself from adding, _Harry_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to another edition of Oops! All Dialogue. 
> 
> Which scene was your favorite? Nick & Sabrina, Ambrose & Sabrina, or Nick & Harvey?
> 
> As you can probably tell, I absolutely adore writing Ambrose & Sabrina scenes, but I wasn’t expecting to enjoy writing Nick & Harvey quite as much as I did. Almost everything is from Sabrina’s perspective in this story since I think it makes more thematic sense for the plot, but it is nice to get a glimpse into Nick’s head every now and then. I hope you guys found it interesting! As for Harvey knowing about the witch-trapping, I figured it might have been a weird thing passed down from his witch-hunting ancestors that Harvey just thinks is common knowledge but really isn’t.
> 
> [Astrology trash note: I originally had Harvey as Taurus/Pisces because of All *clap* His *clap* Feelings *clap* but tbh maybe he’s just straight-up Taurus/Taurus. No shade on Tauruses – I got a bunch of Taurus placements and I love ’em – but is there a more vanilla Sun/Moon combo?]
> 
> Finally, I was about 50/50 on Dorian already knowing what happened with Nick. I think he could have heard about it from someone, but then again he’s not necessarily ~in the loop~, especially with Ambrose out of the country a lot. Probably not subscribed to the Spellman family newsletter, if you get my drift.
> 
> Please leave a comment! I love them, and I love you! <3
> 
> \--  
**Note 10/19/20**: I'm sorry to let everyone know that for all intents and purposes, this fic is abandoned. It's possible I'll come back to it much later down the line, when/if I regain my enthusiasm for the show, but right now I can't see that happening any time soon.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Like I said, it's been a while since I wrote any fanfiction, but I do remember living for reviews. Please leave one if so moved. :)


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